Two Plus Two Equals More
by copyallcatsandacrobats
Summary: Shawn and Lassiter are shocked when versions of themselves from a parallel universe come through the mirrors and are stuck in their world; more shocking still is that their alternate selves are in a serious relationship. The alternate Shawn and Lassiter jump into the investigation, aided somewhat awkwardly by the original Shawn and Lassiter. (Shawn/Lassiter established/developing.)
1. Chapter 1

Shawn Spencer was on his knees in the middle of a mostly silent crowd; he had his eyes closed as if he was concentrating, and the tips of his fingers were set to his forehead like he was pointing out where the psychic vibe should zap him next. He could hear whispers and the shifting of feet, but he waited, pretending to listen to the music of the universe—actually, he was holding out for one sound, one particular annoyed sigh, and when he heard it he would know his cue. It wouldn't be until he was pissed off, thinking again that their time was being wasted while the murderer stood in the room with an overly innocent expression, that Detective Lassiter would pay enough attention to Shawn to make everything worth it.

True, it would be irritated attention, and Lassie would almost certainly either insist again that Shawn wasn't psychic, or try to convince Chief Vick to kick him off the case, but after Shawn laid everything out and wrapped it up for them so nicely—he could do everything but tie the bow on it—no one, least of all the chief, would pay attention to him.

There it was—there was only one person Shawn knew that could snort so derisively. He wanted to smile and open his eyes, to gauge Lassiter's reaction when he appeared to solve everything in less than five minutes, but he needed to stay in character. This time he'd miss the way Lassie's eyes would widen and then blaze at him, furious that he'd gotten to the end first, supremely annoyed that the only answer he gave was of the mystic, and that he hardly ever even needed to offer any sort of proof anymore before everyone believed him and stood back in awe. Which was fitting, Shawn thought, as his mental powers—while not exactly what he claimed—were deserving of the awe.

If only Lassie would see that.

"I'm making soup," Shawn announced at last, and he pantomimed adding something to a pot before stirring it, still with his eyes closed. He then ladled some into a bowl. "Chicken soup for the chronically-ill soul, but—oh no! The secret ingredient! That's not love, or even salt. She takes it to Mrs. Norbert—and then stands and watches her eat it, making sure every bite is gone! Her plan is carried out, but...ugh! Grrrak!" He clutched at his throat now and fell to the ground, gasping, hearing more murmurs, including Chief Vick muttering, "She?" either to Lassiter or Juliet.

Their initial arrest of the dead woman's husband had been a good bet—he'd been the one set to receive his wife's entire estate, and her sister had told the detectives on the case that they had been having marital problems, mostly due to his infidelity. The sudden, suspicious death of the couple's granddaughter, and the coroner's strange findings, had been the kicker—it had been what had finally stopped Shawn's compass from spinning, landing at last on the housekeeper.

He gagged a few more times for show, and then he opened his eyes and affected confusion. "I'm dead?" he said. "That chicken soup wasn't good for my soul at all—and it wasn't good for Mrs. Norbert or poor little Hannah." He turned and pointed dramatically at the housekeeper, whose wide eyes and pale face did everything but sign her confession. "Hannah dying was an accident," he said softly. "Wasn't it, Mrs. Prolip? She came into the kitchen, looking for a snack, and got a bowl of the soup you'd made when you were upstairs with Mrs. Norbert. She was hungry, and ate a lot faster than the old woman, and when you came back down you didn't see her bowl in the sink. You'd been poisoning Mrs. Norbert for days, but Hannah was much smaller than her grandmother, so the poison took effect much more quickly. You probably upped the last batch to a higher dose, too, since she'd found out about her husband cheating on her... with you."

The housekeeper suddenly burst into tears, holding her hands over her face while Juliet and Lassiter moved to stand on either side of her. "I never meant to hurt that little girl," she sobbed. "She had nothing to do with it. I'm so sorry."

"But you had no compunctions about killing your lover's wife, a woman suffering a long illness?" Lassiter jumped in, looking disgusted. He nodded at Juliet, who pulled her cuffs out and clicked them around Kathy Prolip's wrists while reciting the Miranda to her quietly. Lassiter turned to follow her as she led the still-weeping housekeeper out of the big kitchen and toward the door, but he glanced back at Shawn and frowned. Shawn gave him a grin, pleased that he had another solve under his belt and that they'd gotten the murderer, but Lassie just rolled his eyes as he exited.

"Excellent work, Mr. Spencer," Chief Vick said.

Shawn put his solemn expression back on. "I'm just glad we were able to secure justice for that poor woman and her granddaughter. It was the little girl that told me her soup tasted funny."

"Right." Vick sighed. "Come on down to the station—we'll have Detective Lassiter take your statement when he's through supervising Detective O'Hara's wrap up of the case. Your check should be ready in a couple of days."

Sweet—in a couple of days, Gus would be back from his boring work thing in Phoenix, and Shawn could surprise him with a receipt for the Psych office's paid rent for that month. Or a carnival-rated cotton candy machine and the entire box set of Monty Python's Flying Circus, that would likely be equally as surprising. Shawn decided he'd figure that out in the moment, to see which way the wind led his heart. He was wonderfully whimsical like that.

Shawn rode to the PD on his bike and hung out with Buzz for an hour while Lassie and Jules were finishing up with Mrs. Prolip. He listened to updates on the little boy cat, heard about how Buzz was still studying for the D.E.T. (Shawn took a minute to have a vision about a trick question he recalled from the time he'd taken it), told him about the time he and Gus had successfully convinced a substitute teacher that they didn't have to take a math test because their parents agreed that long division was the work of the devil ("Remainders are just plain unholy, Buzz—the good lord Jesus provides for those that are left out only if they take Him into their hearts"), and made origami animals for Juliet's desk. (He would have made something for Lassie, but he didn't know how to make a paper anti-liberal.)

By the time Lassie was ready for him, he was in an even more terrible mood than the last time Shawn had seen him. He almost slammed the door of the interview room behind them, and then he nearly flung a yellow pad and a pen at him. "Write," he ordered. "And make it fast, I have actual work to do to get this buttoned up and done."

"Sure thing, Lass," Shawn said lightly, reaching for the pen. "I only did everything else, for which you are externally welcome."

Lassiter rolled his eyes. "I think you mean eternally. Which isn't true either way, because I didn't thank you."

"Well, that wasn't very mannerly of you."

Lassiter simply folded his arms and stared him down; Shawn might have been able to win a staring contest, but Lassie actually looked pissed—not just at the case, but at Shawn—so he sighed softly and started to write. He laid out everything just the way he'd told it during his breakdown, adding a few dramatic touches to round out the story, and signed with a flourish. When he looked back up to hand it off, he was slightly surprised to find Lassiter directly next to him and staring down at him. He raised his eyebrows innocently, and Lassie leaned close, using his best intimidating glare while he reached over to snatch up the legal pad. Shawn couldn't help but to glance at his lips when he started speaking, and when he made himself look back up to his eyes, he had to remind himself to focus on what he was saying and not the clear, bright, piercing blue of them.

"I don't know how you really do it," he said, "but rest assured that someday I am going to find you out, Spencer. And the next time you use a dead child to lend credibility to your bullshit, I swear I'll hound you every minute until I find something to arrest you for."

"Sounds stalkery," Shawn said. "Let me know in advance if you're going to be spying on me in my undies so that I'm not wearing my Granny panties if it's laundry day. Look, Lassie, I am very sure that that kid wanted her killer to be caught. Are you going to tell me that you don't believe she would have? And now you have the murderer behind bars, with a confession in front of witnesses and everything. I know you don't believe in me, in my abilities, but that's cool—you don't have to. Just trust me once in awhile when I gift-wrap a killer for you. Justice is served either way, so what does it matter which way it was cooked up?"

"Trust you," Lassiter sneered. "I'd rather wear a jock strap made of lettuce." He stood up straight again, although he was still glaring, and jabbed his thumb toward the door. "Get out of here."

Shawn sighed and got up. He stopped in the restroom on the way out and stared in the mirror for a long moment after washing his hands, definitely not thinking about Lassie and what he actually might have done if Shawn had kissed him when he'd gotten in his face and threatened him. It had been an idea he'd had before—a number of times, really, just about every time Lassie got that close to him. He often leaned down over him, so close that Shawn would only have to crane his neck up in order to reach him. He could claim he'd done it just to fluster the other man, much like Bugs Bunny did when he was on the business end of a shotgun, but Lassiter had quick reflexes, and Shawn wasn't sure enough that he wouldn't end up with a broken nose to actually try it. He rather liked his nose the way it was. He ran a finger lightly down the straight line of it to his lips, and then he checked his teeth in his reflection and gave himself a toothpaste commercial grin. He nodded and started to look away—

—but out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw his reflection wink.

Shawn frowned and stared into the mirror, gazing hard into his own eyes for several seconds. He hadn't felt a wink coming on, which was weird, because when he checked his memory, he could have sworn...

It must have been the lights, he decided, glancing up at a long fluorescent bar that was flickering slightly. What else could it have been? He looked back into the mirror and saw only his own face, a small amount of suspicion, and great hair. He shook his head, ready to give it up and go get some lunch, and then he paused again. Did his reflection shake its head one more time than Shawn himself had? No. It couldn't have. Having another confrontation with Lassiter must have put his spirits off more than he thought. He looked at his reflection warily for another moment, and then he left, deciding he'd more than earned a pint of that kind of ice cream that had little bits of waffle cone in it for dinner. Gus said that kind of ice cream in an ice cream cone was redundant, but that was coming from a man who put sugar on his Frosted Flakes, so who was counting?

.

Lassiter stayed irritated for hours after Spencer left, enough so that even O'Hara left him alone to finish his reports, and she didn't comment when he pulled out files for another one of their cases and started flipping through them. She said goodnight when she went home for the day, but she didn't stick around to see if he was going to respond, which went to show how well she was getting to know him, because he barely noticed. He laid out sheets of interview notes and autopsy reports on the surface of his desk and gazed over them, getting more and more pissed off when he found, over and over, that he was thinking about Spencer instead.

Fucking Spencer—holding his fingers to his forehead and exploiting the death of a child in order to scoop up more unfounded reverence when it came to his ludicrous tales of magic and spirits and whatever else. And no, it barely made any difference that he somehow guessed right so much of the time, enough so that the chief continued to call on his Frauds-R-Us line. It had to be just lucky guesswork, there was no way he could have just known the housekeeper was sleeping with the husband. Lassiter himself surely would have arrived at that conclusion himself if Spencer hadn't interrupted his and O'Hara's runthrough of the evidence with claims that the little girl who had died was telling him that her killer wasn't the husband after all.

Justice is served either way, so what does it matter which way it was cooked up?

It mattered. True police work mattered, and chains of evidence mattered, and not being a cocky smart ass who flounced around and made the occasional good guess and grinned like he knew all of the secrets of the universe mattered. Not obstructing justice by giving false statements and then making stupid comments about spying on him in his underwear mattered. Like Lassiter gave a good goddamn about his underwear.

He growled at the papers strewn across his desk, and then he got up in a hurry, heading for the restroom where he could hold his hands under the ice cold water in the sink and then rub his eyes, a method he often used for an oncoming headache. He had been awake for almost twenty-four hours at this point—he had hardly slept the entire week, in fact, ever since Celina Norbert had been found dead and then her granddaughter had suddenly passed—and now he was feeling the effects all at once. His eyes were tired and scratchy, his head pounded, and his face felt hot and flushed to the tips of his ears.

He brushed all of it aside and focused on the cold water running over his hands, and then he bent down to hold the heels of his palms against his eyes, cooling his skin and making his thoughts slow down. He chilled his hands before holding them on his face several more times, rubbing his eyes and his forehead until he felt completely calm again. He didn't really know—or care to know—what it was he'd even been thinking of that had made his thoughts feel like they were about to short out a few minutes ago; he felt better now, and that was what mattered. He could get back to work, and might as well, because his house was empty and there wasn't much of anything to do except flip channels and think about working anyway.

He reached for the paper towel dispenser, yanking out a few and blotting any remaining water droplets on his face and neck, and then he tossed the ball into the wastebasket and checked his tie. It had been around his neck so long that the knot was loosened, so he tightened it. He stood up straighter and gave himself a professional nod.

Then his expression suddenly grew uneasy, his eyes flicking over his face carefully, warily—something wasn't right. He wasn't sure what it was, wasn't sure that he even knew what he was seeing, but he knew his own face, all right, and something just seemed... off. The face looking back at him was definitely his, and there wasn't any silly nonsense like sleep-deprived hallucinations making him appear to have an extra eye or antennae or anything, so what—

Did he really have that much stubble on his cheeks after just one day? He brought his hand up and ran it over his face, feeling the slight sandpaper of a five o'clock shadow, but it had looked like—for just a second he thought he'd seen—

No. He took his hand away and leaned closer to the mirror again, seeing the start of what he called You Could Shave, So You Should. He didn't like stubble, it was unprofessional, but after almost a week on the death of the old woman and the kid, the last triple-shift all rolled into one, he could give himself a pass on the skipped shave that morning. What he'd thought he'd seen in the mirror for a second must have been his brain showing him what he'd look like tomorrow morning if he didn't get a good night's rest and then get back to his good, presentable, professional image.

Lassiter sighed and headed back to his desk, intending to sweep everything together and leave it until tomorrow, but then something on the autopsy report for a man who had supposedly committed suicide jumped out at him, and he grabbed for a witness statement to re-read it, sitting back down into his chair and leaning over with his chin in his hand and his notepad turned to a fresh page. Working was better than sitting at home alone any day, any night.


	2. Chapter 2

Shawn was having a wonderful dream, which turned less wonderful the second he realized it was a dream. That was the awesome but sucky part of such lucid dreams: if they got too awful, which they sometimes did, he could sometimes willfully affect the content or the outcome, changing it from a nightmare to something tolerable, or he could at least make himself wake up. On the other hand, when they were good, he could have anything he wanted, in any way he wanted, at least until the part of him that knew it wasn't real ruined it by thinking wistfully if only this could be real.

This one was a little weirder than normal, though—when he dreamed of anything involving himself, he almost always saw things from his own eyes, his own point of view. This time, however, he seemed to be watching himself—watching himself and Lassie going all the way downtown. They were in bed, both naked, and it was when Lassie gently pushed Shawn down on his back and got between his spread legs, hoisting them up and then—holy Jesus fuck—pushing his dick inside his ass and starting to fuck him, that Shawn knew he was dreaming and got slightly depressed, which was weird considering that he was so hard that his dick almost hurt. The Shawn on the bed sure seemed to be enjoying Lassie railing him, and Shawn thought he could almost feel it himself, his body being rocked back and forth while those blue, blue eyes gazed down at him and the man holding on to him said his name.

He woke up with his hand on his dick through his shorts, already stroking it, and already so close to coming that he was nearly in trouble of having to change. "Fuck," he muttered, and closed his eyes firmly, wanting to go back to that image while he shoved his hand inside his boxers and then pulled his dick out. He tried to see what he'd seen his dream again, but this time from his own point of view; he bent his knees up and spread his legs, imagining Lassie between them, thinking back to the last time he'd been with a guy and trying to lay the memory of that sensation with the idea of Lassie inside him, fucking him hard. He squeezed the head of his cock and moaned a little, imagining that it was Lassie's hand, wanting to make him come while still pounding him. Shawn's hand moved faster, his other hand pushing his tee up and then rolling one of his nipples, and as he imagined what Lassie's face might look like as he shoved his dick all the way up his ass and then came inside him, Shawn came himself, fast and hard and good, so good he couldn't breathe for a few seconds and then he lay back, gasping and panting.

Shawn sighed as he reached up to wipe his hand off on his shirt, and then he pulled the shirt off and swabbed his stomach with it, tossing it in a ball toward the bathroom. He fixed his shorts and then lay there for a few seconds, thinking about the dream and the fantasy, knowing it would almost certainly never happen, which sucked (and totally not in the good way). He sighed again and got up to get a glass of water, squinting against the harsh light of the bathroom fluorescents while he turned the tap on, ran his hands under the water, and dried them on a towel that still hung over the shower bar. He turned back around and picked up the glass he kept his toothbrush in, dumping it out on the counter before holding the glass in the sink to fill it.

He glanced into the mirror as he raised the glass up and took a gulp, and then then choked and spat the water out, starting to cough. His eyes watered and he rubbed at them quickly, trying to clear them enough to see his reflection again, to confirm that he hadn't seen what he thought he had. He stared for a long time, turning his head back and forth and then raising his hands up to pat at his hair, touch his face, do some jazz hands and then the Home Alone Kid face. He blinked and shook his head, wondering what the fuck was going on. Earlier it had seemed that he'd winked at himself in the mirror but had only seen it in the reflection, not felt it on his own face, and now, for just a split second, it had seemed like he hadn't quite been himself in the mirror.

He was himself, he knew that, but in that flash before he'd tried to gasp and instead pulled water down his windpipe, it seemed that the face looking back at him was... different. His hair had been a little shorter, more natural and less gelled or spiked up, his face and cheeks a little thinner... a small hickey on the side of his neck. All impossible: he did his hair every morning, and Gus was just wrong when he said that Shawn used too much product in it. A man only said those things when there was a base of jealousy, which Shawn could understand when it came to his hair. As for the hickey... Shawn nervously rubbed at the side of his neck where it had seemed to be (nope, just a shadow, or maybe his dream, and his fantasy, had still been with him), but it had been months since he'd gotten freaky deaky with anyone.

Hesitantly, Shawn reached forward and touched the mirror, and then he laid the flat of his palm against it. He grinned sheepishly at how stupid he was being—what had he expected, to reach into it? For the Shawn on the other side of it to reach out and grab his hand? Shawn quickly withdrew his arm and even took a step back, giving himself a suspicious look. And then he jumped straight up into the air as a huge crack of thunder sounded and rain began to pour. He swore loudly—what the hell, he was sure it hadn't been about to rain five minutes ago!—and slammed his hand down on the bathroom light, determined to get back to sleep and forget about the whole thing.

He was halfway across his bedroom, near the full-length mirror on the back of the closet door, when a huge bolt of lightning lit up his room. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and he stopped, turning his head slowly to stare at the big mirror, his mouth hanging open. In the single second the lightning shone through his window, he saw a plethora of impossibilities. For one, his reflection was also standing in the middle of a bedroom... but it wasn't his room. It was much bigger, the bed in the middle of the room instead of in the corner, the floor carpeted instead of wood laminate. There was a huge storm whipping tree branches around in a window behind his reflection's self, which was also strange, because Shawn's bedroom window didn't have any trees near it.

His reflection was turned away from the mirror as well, looking back to the window with his shoulders hunched, as if he was afraid a branch was going to come through the window. Shawn almost wouldn't have been surprised at this point. He squinted, and although the room was dark again, he could almost swear that he still saw everything that simply could not be there. If he was still dreaming, this was the most lucid and realistic one he'd ever had. Maybe no more whole pints of ice cream for dinner, no matter how delicious Waffle Cone Craze was—ever since he'd been a kid, large amounts of sugar seemed to amp up his dreams, which had been Henry's reasoning for rationing his Halloween candy until the start of February every year.

The thunder rumbled again, and a jingle for a car repair shop in the Midwest suddenly came to his mind. "Rattle rattle, thunderclatter, boom boom boom," he sang softly.

"Don't worry, call the Car-X Man," his reflection continued.

"What?!" Shawn yelped, shocked, as his reflection turned back toward the mirror and stared at him, equally shocked.

It was Shawn as he thought he'd seen himself in the mirror twice today—no doubt about it: his hair was a little different, his body was a little thinner, and he was standing in a room that Shawn had never before seen in his life. Behind him, the lightning flashed again, but not in the world Shawn knew—and when it did, he saw that it had hit part of the tree and that the branch was coming through the window after all.

"Hey, hit the deck!" he shouted without thinking, pointing into the mirror. Just then the lightning came through his own window, and he flinched as he heard breaking glass, turning with his shoulders hunched and expecting to see that his own bedroom window was broken. It wasn't.

Shawn had barely enough time to exhale in relief and turn back toward his mirror before he saw that his reflection-self was backing away from the spray of rain, tree, and broken window that was now inside his room. He was coming fast, toward the mirror, and Shawn's mouth dropped open again as he came through the fucking mirror, tripped on the frame, and fell back into Shawn, his arms flailing. Shawn was frozen in shock and he didn't have time to move out of the way or try to catch him, and everything from the clock on his nightstand to the streetlamp outside went dark as the power shorted out and he was knocked down by a very solid body—his own. He lay on the hard floor and tried to catch his breath, but there was an elbow in his stomach.

"What the frick frack?!" the other Shawn cried out. He jerked up into a sitting position and Shawn could breathe again. As he sat up himself, he heard more glass breaking. The power flickered back on then, the streetlamp outside casting in a weak light through the rain, and he could see the very real outline of himself on the floor next to him, looking around wildly.

Shawn carefully got to his feet, although his legs felt like the support they gave him was pretty tenuous. He reached over and felt the wall, and when the overhead light came on and showed him the person on the floor, he tried to speak and couldn't, feeling again like the wind had been knocked out of him. The Shawn still on the floor flinched when the bright light came on, and then he just stared around the room, facing away from Shawn.

"Huh," he said dully. "Is that what my hair looks like from the back?"

Other-Shawn jerked and turned around fast, his eyes huge and his mouth also dropped open in shock. "Okay," he said slowly. "No more entire containers of ice cream right before bed. Got it."

"What kind?" Shawn asked, just to say something. He had no clue what to do, what to even think.

"Um... birthday cake."

"You rogue, it's not your birthday."

"Don't tell me how to live my life, Mirror Man."

"Me?" Shawn said indignantly. "You just fell out of my mirror!"

The other Shawn got to his feet as well, brushing off his arms and looking around again warily. "Did not," he said. "I walked into mine. Which means this is a Mirror World and everything here is probably backwards and trippy."

Shawn folded his arms. How dare this unauthorized Shawn-double call his world backwards? He was the one that tripped! "Then why did you come from an entirely different room?" he asked. "Why wasn't everything the same, just on the other side?"

"Hmm, good question." Other-Shawn made a face at the room. "You've got this all wrong, dude—the bed can't be right up against the wall, and you need a rug on the floor, or he gets super cranky in the mornings when he gets out of bed and his long clown feet freeze."

That... was just about the strangest thing Shawn Spencer never thought he'd hear coming out of his own mouth. "Huh?" was all he could say. "Cl—? Are you telling me you're sleeping with a clown?" He pictured himself getting into bed with a man in white greasepaint and a jester hat. That would sure be an odd way of saying he was doing It. Beep beep, Shawnie.

The other Shawn looked completely bewildered at that. "What? Mirror-me, don't be a glass of obtuse juice—I'm talking about Carlton. You know, how his toes are weird and freakishly long and he hates when they're cold? You... don't know what I'm talking about," he finished slowly, looking carefully at Shawn's face before his eyes widened in surprise. "Oh no, you're not—you're not with Carlton Lassiter? He's not your boyfriend?"

"No, I'm not!" Shawn said, his own eyes wide, and his heart rate kicked up another notch. "Wh—are you?"

"Yeah!" the other Shawn said, like duh. "Why aren't you?"

"Um, because he hates me?" Shawn said, feeling like he'd been punched in the stomach for a third time. This Shawn had Lassie, was sleeping with him? Calling him his boyfriend? How the hell fair was that?

"What?!" Other-Shawn put his hands up and shook his head. "Okay, nope, I don't like this world, I'm going home."

"That'll be a neat trick, if you can do it," Shawn said sullenly. "Maybe I'll just wake up and you can go back to ice cream dream land."

"I fell in through the mirror, so I can just—" Other-Shawn stopped in mid-sentence as they both glanced at the full-length mirror that had been over the closet door.

Shawn realized then why he'd heard breaking glass so close to him, yet his window was still intact: the mirror was cracked in dozens of places, and he saw lines so straight they almost had to have been made deliberately. "Well, that's seven years bad luck," he observed. His double looked at him, and Shawn slowly dropped his arms out of his defensive posture when he recognized the real fear his saw in his eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

Lassiter leaned against the wall in an interview room, staring across the table to the empty chair and remembering his questioning session with a business rival of a man who had supposedly killed himself, a man who had threatened the recently deceased publicly, according to several witness statements. He'd read and re-read his notes and the interview transcript, the rival's statement and the autopsy report, and something just didn't add up. He frowned in the empty room and recalled the way the other man had sat in his chair, how often he'd shifted positions, how quickly he'd answered some questions and how long he'd taken to think about others.

It had started to storm outside, coming on fast, and all at once he could hear huge, rolling thunder, which was distracting. A bolt of lightning flashed glare-bright in one of the high windows and he turned to look, thinking that it was a wonder it hadn't hit anything. He shook his head slightly and sighed, deciding that he was probably wasting his time, and then he stood up straighter to get his folder from the table and go back upstairs. The thunder boomed again then, so loudly that it almost startled him. He glanced up at the window again and frowned, not looking forward to going out to his car in the downpour.

As he turned back, he saw something in his peripheral vision that wasn't right. His eyes darted around the room quickly, and then he froze with a breath caught in his chest when they landed on the one-way mirror: his reflection wasn't looking back at him, or even facing him, but had his neck craned toward the window near the ceiling still. When Lassiter saw his reflection shake his head a little and then look back at him, his mouth dropped open and he took a step back. The Carlton Lassiter in the mirror saw him then and froze himself for several seconds.

"What in the name of—" Lassiter began in a low voice, and that too caught in his throat when he thought he heard his voice coming not only from his own mouth, but from the mirror. He scowled then, and made a beeline for the door, wanting to catch whoever it was that was playing a trick on him, whoever thought it was hilarious to mess with him when he was trying to solve a case. Whoever dared to even try was going to get a big surprise when he caught—

He yanked open the door to the observation room hard, going in ready to show whoever it was that he was not an easy target, but the room was empty. He glared at the hallway, where he should have seen someone retreating if they had just been there, but it was also empty and silent. He frowned again and set his jaw, going back into the interview room more slowly. He stood in front of the one-way mirror with his hands on his hips, his eyes scanning the surface of it for a long moment before he shook his head again and relaxed slightly. He really needed to get more sleep. And he would, just as soon as he'd found another lead on the probably-not-a-suicide case. God forbid Vick would decide he wasn't working fast enough and would call in Spencer, and then he would have to deal with having him around again, his smart ass comments and flippant attitude and that _mouth_, seeming to never really shut up, the smug grin he seemed to save just for Lassiter when he—

Another huge crack of thunder, this one the loudest yet. Lassiter jumped slightly and glanced back over his shoulder at the window again, and he had just started to chastise himself for being jumpy, for seeing things that weren't there, and for being unable to get Spencer out of his mind, when he heard a sound—a sound like someone falling on the ground, hard. He whipped his head back around and saw two things at once, one after the other hitting him so hard that he couldn't breathe, couldn't think. The first was that he no longer had a reflection. The second was that, evidently, his reflection was _on the floor_. Lassiter stared, his mouth hanging open, as he himself quickly stood up several feet away, one hand curled into a fist while the other went to the handle of the Glock in his holster. His own hands mimicked the second action, but more slowly—what was he supposed to do in this particular hallucination, shoot himself?

There was a sound like a shot to his right, and he instinctively pulled his gun after all. At the same time, the man standing next to him drew his; both stepped away from the mirror and aimed, and both saw the change simultaneously: the glass was fractured in long, straight lines in several places. Lassiter could now see his reflection—and the reflection of another Lassiter on his left, looking equally shocked—in the broken mirror. He turned and stared, not aiming his weapon at the apparition, but not putting it away, either.

It seemed the other man had the same idea, and as he turned to face Lassiter as if they were getting ready for a duel, Lassiter saw that it wasn't his reflection, not exactly: this man, while standing the exact same height, having the exact same build, and appearing to have the same face as him, was wearing a different tie, had slightly longer hair, and had apparently missed the memo that one needed to step up to the razor when shaving in the morning.

"Who the hell are you?" Lassiter—and his apparent double—said at once. They both blinked, and scowled, and tried again. "What the hell just happened?"

"Quit it!" Lassiter snapped.

"Tuna shoes!" the other man said.

Lassiter was incredibly confused at that, and hearing nonsense coming from someone that seemed to be himself, added to the mere fact of another one of himself standing three feet from him, pissed him off even more. "What the Christ are you talking about?" he demanded.

The other man relaxed slightly, although his face remained wary. "So, you're not an exact mirror image of me, not like that would be possible." He glanced at the glass again before returning his gaze to Lassiter. "You want to explain to me what the hell is going on before I arrest you and everyone you're in cahoots with?"

Lassiter narrowed his eyes. "Threaten me again and we'll see who arrests who. Now, whoever the hell you are, you have thirty seconds to explain yourself before I call for backup."

"No, _you_ have ten seconds to start explaining all of this to me—starting with how the fuck you managed to steal my face."

Lassiter glared furiously. "You tell me how you managed to steal my face and why the hell you're impersonating me. What are you planning?"

The other man seemed to think for a moment, his eyes darting all over the place before he pressed his lips together. "Shawn didn't do this," he said finally, seemingly to himself. "I would kill him."

"Sh—Spencer?" Lassiter repeated, confused for a second before zeroing in on it—yes, of course, Spencer! He would plan something like this, to try to freak him out and make him the butt of yet another stupid joke. However... the replication was almost perfect, eerily so. How was it possible?

The other man looked at him contemplatively, and then he said something that Lassiter never imagined would come out of his mouth with his own hard, absolute conviction. "If you're me," he said, "tell me the significance of a guitar solo and a blank postcard."

Lassiter looked at the man, telling himself over and over that it was impossible, that this last meant nothing and it was still some kind of trick, a hallucination, anything except the idea that some other version of himself was standing in front of him. But how could he know, how could anyone—he had never told, not that it had mattered in the end. Still, he simply could not square his living reflection falling out of the goddamn mirror and speaking his secrets to him. "If you're me," he repeated back, a little sarcastically, "tell me yourself."

The other man's mouth tightened slightly. "I say what was on the radio, you say what picture was on the postcard."

"You first."

"Do you agree?" the lookalike pressed.

"Fine," Lassiter said, trying to keep his voice even. What did, 'If you're me,' even mean? There was only one him, and he was pretty damn sure he was it.

The other man hesitated for a second, still wary. "Stranglehold," he said in a low voice.

Lassiter felt like he had been put in one. He opened his mouth, then closed it, and then he shook his head briskly, hoping that when his thoughts stopped rattling and echoing, his hallucination would have cleared. It hadn't. What appeared to be another Carlton Lassiter was still standing there, still watching him, his expression becoming more suspicious by the second. Stranglehold. Eight minutes of darkness in a car, guitars and kissing, groping, feeling things he'd never imagined and getting ready to dive in, only for it all to be dissolved with a coerced promise of silence and then a blank postcard in lieu of a goodbye.

"The Statue of Liberty," he said, and what had struck his angry twenty-year-old self as horribly ironic at the time was now only blanched and sad. He looked at the other man in the room and saw his eyes drop away a little, and when he saw that, the old hurt on his face and knowing that he too was reliving the same memories, he couldn't completely deny it any more. That wasn't to say that he believed it, exactly... but...

"Okay," the other Lassiter said after a long moment. "You're me. I don't know how that's possible, but I intend to find out."

Lassiter pointed to the mirror. "Any theories as to how that happened? It wasn't like that five minutes ago. You—" He stopped, unable to bring himself to say fell through the mirror. "What do you remember happening in the last ten minutes?"

The other man frowned. "I was here, going over my notes for an interview with a suspect," he reported. "I thought I saw movement in the m—behind the glass, so I went into the observation room to investigate. There was no one that I could see or hear, so I came back in here to get my file and go home." He paused, his eyes flicking over warily before his expression smoothed out into Lassiter's famous interrogation blandness, the one he used when he wanted a suspect to hang himself. "Your account?"

"Similar," Lassiter admitted carefully, and then he stepped back and shook his head again. "I haven't slept in over twenty-four hours, and it's been sporadic since my last case. This is a hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation. It's downright impossible to be talking to another me."

"Brilliant assessment." The other man rolled his eyes. "I'd be tempted to agree, actually, but I've been sleeping just fine. Other than thinking I saw what I now can say looks a hell of a lot like you in the mirror earlier tonight, I've not experienced anything out of the ordinary until five minutes ago."

"When you fell out of a mirror?"

He glared. "When I was pushed into a mirror, only to find myself on the floor in here and dealing with you."

That hadn't been something he'd seen, and Lassiter raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Who pushed you?"

"I don't know, I was looking at you." The other man glanced up at the high windows and frowned. "It's not thundering anymore."

He was right, it wasn't—but did that have any bearing on the current situation? "Are non-sequiturs a champion sport in your world, Mister Tuna Shoes?" he asked.

He gave Lassiter an impatient, contemptuous look. "You were speaking at the exact same time as I was, saying the exact same thing I was," he said. "That was the first thing I thought of to see if it continued." Having explained that much, he then apparently decided to curve even further into the random. "Give me your phone," he demanded, holding his hand out. "I left mine on the table, so I don't have it, and I need to call Shawn."

"What? Spencer? Why, in god's name?" Lassiter gestured between them. "This isn't insane enough for you?"

The other man's hand dropped, and the suspicion on his face returned. "Spencer," he repeated slowly. "You don't call him Shawn."

Lassiter was now indignant. "Why should I? I'd prefer to call him never, but the chief still buys his bullshit at least once a week, it seems like. Why do you bother?"

The other man didn't reply; instead, he stepped closer to the mirror, pulled a pen from inside his jacket, and gently tapped the mirror. The pen didn't go through or anything absurd like that, and his frown deepened. "We need to get out of here," he said slowly. "It doesn't seem like we're going to know what the hell is going on within the next five minutes, and I somehow doubt anyone coming along and seeing two of me is going to simply take it in stride."

That was a good enough point. Lassiter slowly reholstered his gun, and when the other man saw him, he did the same. Lassiter opened his mouth to suggest he just go home and get a good night's sleep, trying hard to believe that when he woke he could come in to work in the morning and there would be no sign of some not-quite replica of himself standing around, nor the broken one-way glass in Interview Room A, when his phone rang. He huffed in annoyance and pulled it out, not missing the way the other man's eyes fixed on it. He looked at the display before flipping it open and then almost dropped it: Spencer. He blinked at the phone and then glanced up before slowly pressing two buttons: one to answer, one for speaker.

"Hello?" he said cautiously.

"Hey, Lassie!" the voice on the other end sounded harried and nervous, and Lassiter also did not miss the way the other version of himself reacted to it—his eyes widened slightly and he stepped closer, staring at the phone with—what? Concern? "Um, I have—kind of a situation? Something way fucked up happened, I don't even know how to—just, look, I need some urgent, like, police assistance, okay? I swear I'm not kidding, I need—please, can you come?"

"Just you!" Spencer continued—although his voice suddenly sounded slightly different.

Lassiter frowned, trying to pick out what it was—it was just two words, and they were coming from a cell phone that was on its speaker, but he could have sworn he heard something. Was it that the last two words had been spoken slower, softer than the rest, which was delivered in almost one anxious breath? He opened his mouth to reply, but it seemed that the other man had heard the difference as well, and responded to it.

"It's okay, Shawn," he said, his voice strong and reassuring. "I'm coming."

Lassiter glanced at him now, but he was still focused on the phone. There was a pause, and then they heard a quiet, "What?" Spencer, confused.

A second later, Spencer again, much calmer, his voice warm and relieved. "Carlton," he said.

_What_?

"Fifteen minutes," the other man promised, and snatched the phone out of Lassiter's hand to flip it closed. When he looked at Lassiter again, his gaze was hard and his jaw was set. "We go to him _now,_" he said.

"...What?" he managed. Shawn? Carlton?

The other Lassiter rolled his eyes. "I can't do this with you right now," he snapped. "Whatever the Christ happened, we'll figure it out, but as of this moment, that is Priority Two." He suddenly glanced up at the ceiling and pointed. "Hey, what's that?"

Lassiter looked up, frowning, and then he curled his hand into a fist when he felt a very solid hallucination reach forward and lift his car keys as deftly as a pickpocket, something he'd tried to practice off and on as a kid, but had never pursued as an officer. Getting into those habits had cost many good detectives entire cases when they relied on them and failed to get proper warrants for searches and evidence. "The hell do you think you're doing?" he demanded. "You hand them over this second or we're going to have a problem."

"Newsflash: this is a problem." The other man gave him another second of his own glare, and then he started walking out of the room. "Car, two minutes," he said. "If you're not there, I'm leaving without you."

Lassiter took three quick steps after him and grabbed his elbow. "The hell you are," he said. "If we're leaving, I'm going first."

The other Lassiter shook him off, and hard—so vigorously that Lassiter almost lost his footing and fell over. "No. I don't trust you to not leave me here, or to actually go see what's wrong with Shawn."

"Spencer?" Lassiter rolled his eyes. "He probably thinks the Boogey Man is out to get him. But I'm a cop, all right, I don't deliberately ignore civilians in distress, especially when they call me directly and ask for police assistance. Spencer's fucking annoying, but why would you just assume I wouldn't help him if he really needed it?"

"Two minutes," the other man snapped. He did an about-face and zipped down the hall before quick-stepping the staircase to the main floor. Lassiter held himself back for twenty seconds, not wanting anyone still around upstairs to actually see two of him (although the corroborating witness statement to his own delirium would at least give him an indication either way of what he was actually seeing, or not seeing). Then he thought of the number of times his double had said _Shawn_, and then he made for the parking lot.


	4. Chapter 4

Shawn watched the mirror image of himself carefully as he half-heartedly poked around in the refrigerator for a few minutes; then he just swung the door closed, looking disappointed. "Do you have anything here to drink?" he asked.

"You just went past the Capri Sun pouches twice," Shawn told him. "It should say something about how much I'm reeling at all of this that I'm willing to let you have one."

Other-Shawn started to shake his head, stopped to reconsider, and then he nodded and grabbed two. He tossed the other one to Shawn, who caught it but didn't insert the straw. "Piña Mango, hell yeah, boy!" he said. "Now I just need something to put in it. Don't get me wrong, this is a swell pick-me-up on a night when you somehow slip into an alternate dimension, but due to said dimension-hopping I'm pretty sure I'm going to need a serious _drink_."

"Oh." That wasn't a bad idea and could help soften the explosion when Lassiter (and Other-Lassiter, if Other-Shawn was right) arrived. "There's vodka in the freezer."

The other Shawn nodded and pulled out the bottle, glanced around the tiny kitchen once before going immediately to the cupboard where the glasses were kept, and returned to the table with a plastic tumbler that had Iron Man on it and a coffee mug that declared that the person drinking from it had gotten boned at the dinosaur museum. He sat down, looked at both, then slid the Iron Man glass over before piercing his Capri Sun pouch and squirting about half of it into the mug. He added vodka while Shawn poured his own juice drink into Iron Man, and then he tossed back almost all of it in one huge gulp while Shawn spiked his own drink.

Other-Shawn smacked his lips while filling his mug up with the rest of his Capri Sun and more vodka, and then he glanced around again. "Hey, I don't suppose you have any good scotch?" he asked. "I know you don't like it, because I don't, but on the off-chance? Or maybe you do like it?"

Shawn made a face. "Don't be ridiculous, that stuff tastes like gasoline fermented in a barrel. Why would I keep it around? And why do you want it? Is my world so bad you're thinking of subjecting yourself to that stuff already?"

"Nah—er, well, I have no idea yet, actually." The other Shawn frowned. "I mean, you get a big checkmark in the 'cons' side of the chart for not being with Carlton. He's why I was asking about the scotch, too—he doesn't drink vodka, and he's going to want something."

"Okay, you have to stop calling him that," Shawn said. "It's freaking me out. His name is Sassy Lassie, or, failing that, Mr. Bean's cantankerous brother, Mr. Mean."

Other-Shawn snorted. "No, actually, he hated it when I called him 'Lassie'. We made a deal—I use his name, he uses my name. You should've seen what happened the last time I called him Bony Randall."

"...What happened?"

He grinned. "I got _boned_."

Shawn shook his head briskly and put a hand up. "Nope, don't believe you," he decided. "You're too far out of the realm of possibility. You could have said anything—my parents never got divorced, it's customary to give kindergartners their own dragons on the first day of school, in Rand McNally people wear shoes on their hands and hamburgers eat people—but claiming that Carlton Lassiter is in a relationship with me—with _you_? Uh-uh, Jack. I call bullshit."

"More bullshit than me coming through your mirror and sitting here talking to you?"

"Maybe you're not real."

The other Shawn leaned forward and pinched Shawn's arm really hard. When he yelped and drew back, Other-Shawn smirked, satisfied. "Ha! I must be pretty real to be able to do that. Maybe _you're_ not real—I buy that a lot more than falling through a mirror into some sad, flat existence where I'm reduced to jacking off at night because I'm all alone."

"How d—" Shawn stopped, suddenly realizing how annoying it really was when he told people things they thought he couldn't know. This mirror-man had obviously seen the balled-up shirt near the hamper, heard Shawn's surprise and longing when he'd told him he was with Lassie, and made the deductions. Irritating. "Whatever, I was having a really good dream," he scoffed, and then he paused. "About... um, Lassie, actually." He glanced at his double, who had the nerve to look amused at that. "You're not fucking with me?" he asked. "You and him are really—?"

"It's that hard to believe?" Other-Shawn asked, his eyebrows raised. "Have you not, like, been super into him from the day you met him?"

"No, I totally have," Shawn agreed. It was beyond weird to discuss his feelings about Lassie with _himself_, but realistically his other self was probably the only one that would get it, or that would talk about it. Gus knew, but refused to discuss Shawn's feelings, which he insisted were of the 'you only want what you can't have' variety, and he started throwing things if Shawn tried to get him to participate in a brainstorming session regarding ways to get Lassie interested. "But he hasn't been into me—he gets pissed off from the second I show up, and he'd like nothing more than to arrest me."

"Well, the handcuff part I'll concede," Other-Shawn said, and grinned. "But no, man, I'm not fucking with you. It's been almost a year, and with both of our romantic histories, and the fact that we're us, that's like, what, five years in normal-people time? He actually asked me to move in with him two months ago, and I actually said yes, and it's still working. It's not always perfectly smooth sailing, you know—one or both of us has gotta rock the boat every now and then or we just wouldn't still be ourselves—but it's going good enough that we're both happy and not planning on changing anything for the time being." He frowned. "Unless whatever _this_ is fucks things up. That would be just my luck—go through a mirror into another dimension, which is totally dope and if we don't play some tricks on Gus I'm going to change into some jammies and power-sulk through all four Karate Kid movies—but then either I never get home and back to him, or he's here too but can't handle staying here and we break up."

"How did it even happen?" Shawn asked, awed. He thought back to one year ago, but couldn't remember anything specific that seemed like a definite way in that he'd missed. Maybe Lassie had actually initiated it? _As if_.

Shawn's double had been drinking the remainder of his Capri Smirnoff, and when he was finished he set the mug down and licked his lips. He started to say something, but then he stopped as they both heard a car screech to the curb. "They're here," he said. "We'll have to have our girl talk later, buddy. If we can't figure out how to get us back, that is."

Shawn made a face at 'girl talk', but then he refocused on the last part of what Other-Shawn had said. "You really think _your_ Lassie got—got pulled through when you did?" he asked.

The other Shawn had stood up and gone to the doorway, waiting for Shawn to get up too, and he nodded, completely sure in himself. "I know what it sounds like when he says my name. That was him on the phone." He paused. "Besides, if he really still doesn't like you here, as much as you said, and you still call him 'Lassie', doesn't he still just call you 'Spencer'?"

"Yeah." Shawn shrugged.

Other-Shawn gave him a sympathetic look. "Well, I mean, that's how it was for me too, at least at first? Maybe it's still coming, man. Maybe he just needs more time here—like I said, he didn't like me at first either, and it was over a year that we knew each other before anything happened."

"Maybe he's just straight here," Shawn muttered. He'd gone back and forth over whether or not he thought Lassie was into guys, but talking to this other Shawn about being with another Lassiter, he wondered if the difference was that that version of Lassie was actually capable of being interested in him, whereas the one he knew wasn't.

"Maybe," Other-Shawn said, though he looked doubtful. "I guess we don't really know what's going on here."

There was a pounding at the door, and they both headed for it, although they only made it halfway across the living room before someone tried the knob and burst in—Lassie, looking exhausted and pale but tense and distracted. "Spencer, what—" Then he stopped short as he saw both Shawns, and his mouth dropped open for a second as his eyes darted between them, and then he threw his hands up in the air. "Great!" he said. "Not that I don't have enough of my own insanity to deal with, but now there are two of _you_?"

"Double your pleasure, double your fun?" Shawn suggested. He'd been trying for nonchalance, but when the other Shawn looked at him and smirked, he couldn't help but to mentally cross his fingers and decide he'd been very serious.

"That's not funny!" Lassiter snapped angrily. Shawn saw his double lose his grin, standing up straighter and considering Lassie warily. "You want to tell me what in the _hell_ is going on here, Spencer?"

"I would if I knew!" Shawn said, and pointed at Other-Shawn. "Ask him, he came out of the mirror!"

"No, I didn't, I went _into_ the mirror!" Other-Shawn insisted.

"We're a mirror world," Shawn told Lassie. "Isn't that hella cool? I bet the other you is a Democrat."

Other-Shawn gasped and laid a hand over his chest. "Bite your tongue!"

"Oh my god," Lassiter said, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm dead and this is hell."

"You'll be dead the next time you try to grab my gun while I'm driving," snarled another Lassiter-voice, and then Mirror-Shawn was proved right as _another Lassie_ came into his apartment from the hallway and slammed the door behind him. He looked slightly different than this-world-Lassie, as the other Shawn looked a little different than Shawn himself, but the furious glare on his face was all too familiar. "Next time it _might_ just discharge all on its own."

"Oh, shut it," Lassie said, rolling his eyes. "I needed to get up here first, and we have bigger problems than that pathetic pea-shooter you're carrying." He pointed into the room, and Shawn found himself standing up straighter as this other Lassie—the one Other-Shawn claimed was actually his boyfriend—looked them both over.

"Pick a Shawn, any Shawn," Other-Shawn said lightly.

"Right," Other-Lassie said. His eyes had flicked over Other-Shawn quickly, but then he studied Shawn carefully, suspiciously, for a long moment before slowly walking over to Other-Shawn, who clasped his hands behind his back and smiled up at him. The other Lassiter stopped in front of him, but very close. "You're okay?" he asked softly.

"I am now," Other-Shawn said. "I have no idea what happened, and it's a little freaky and I have to admit I'm a skosh concerned, but if you're here too I'm randy-dandy."

Shawn saw the corner of Other-Lassie mouth quick up slightly, and he barely realized that he was hardly breathing; his wanting Lassiter had been such a constant thing for months on end, an impossibility he had come to be almost certain was forever going to be one-sided, that he'd gotten so used to the other man scowling or glaring at him he'd almost forgotten the few and far between small smiles he'd received as well. Each time Lassie had almost smiled at him—and meant it, versus the sarcastic ones that were simply his mouth moving and didn't reach his eyes—he'd been reminded of how badly he wanted to see that look constantly, and he felt a sharp tug in his guts when he realized that this other Shawn had that. Had him.

"It's 'handy-dandy'," Other-Lassie said, and Shawn knew what the next lines were before they were out.

"I've heard it both ways," Other-Shawn said unconcernedly. "Besides, I'm much more randy than handy."

"Nobody cares," Lassie said sharply, and then he shot a look at Shawn, as if he'd been the one that had spoken. "I think what's more pressing right now is to figure out how in the hell you two are here, and why, and how to get you back or otherwise get rid of you somehow."

"If we came through the mirror, we should have to go back through the mirror," Other-Shawn said. "But the one I came through is all broken." He looked questioningly at Other-Lassiter. "Same?"

Other-Lassie nodded, frowning. "I was shoved through at the PD in one of the interview rooms, and the glass is broken now."

"I wonder if they're broken on the other side too," Shawn mused.

"What does that matter?" Lassiter asked. "If anyone could get back to wherever that is to find out, this conversation would be pointless." He shook his head. "This is already pointless, and downright absurd. I'm exhausted, I need to get some sleep, and I expect that when I wake up, this looney-brigade will have been nothing but a sleep-deprived hallucination."

"Do you usually hallucinate about a double of me and you knocking boots?" Shawn asked innocently.

Lassiter looked at him sharply. "What?"

"I can't pull off boots," Other-Shawn said. "But I can rock the bunny slippers like no one's bidness."

"Shut it," Lassiter snapped at him, and then he resumed glaring at Shawn. "What did you just say?"

"Don't tell him to shut it," Lassie's double said. "If he needs to close his trap, _I'll_ tell him to shut it."

"Yeah!" Other-Shawn crowed. Other-Lassiter gave him a look and he subsided, but he was smiling still.

Shawn pointed at his own double. "He says that him and _his_ Lassie over there are together. They're totally doing the no-pants dance in the nighttime."

"And sometimes during the daytime it's playtime," Other-Shawn added.

"Shut it, Shawn," Other-Lassiter said, but his voice was low as he watched Lassiter warily.

Lassiter started to roll his eyes, and then he glanced at his mirror-twin and froze, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. He looked between Other-Lassiter and Other-Shawn several times, and then a look of horrified realization came over his face. "Oh my _god_," he nearly spat. "You're _not_ serious."

"Almost never," Other-Shawn agreed. "But this time I am." He looked at his boyfriend. "They're not a thing here."

"I noticed," Other-Lassiter said dryly.

"They're totally weirded out by our forbidden love. I don't like this world. First one home has a rotten leg."

"Yeah, _that's_ the only reason to figure out what the hell happened and how to get back."

"Are you saying it's true?" Lassiter demanded, looking incredulously at his other self, who glared back at him. "You're in a relationship with _him_?"

"So what if I am?" Other-Lassiter shot back, folding his arms across his chest. "I don't give a shit if you're supposed to be some sort of alter-ego of me or not—if you're going to have issues I'd be glad to help you sort them out."

Shawn had, of course, heard of some guys being conflicted with themselves about their attraction to other guys, but this was ridiculous. Lassiter gave him such a venomous look at that point that he actually took a step back. "Why are you mad at _me_?" he asked, indignant. "I didn't say it! And I haven't left my own little universe here or done any mirror-hopping. If they're from another world, then that's entirely separate from ours. I'm not secretly dating you, I promise."

"And really—like _that_ would be the strangest part of all of this?" Other-Shawn added.

Lassiter shook his head disgustedly and then he threw his hands in the air. "Whatever!" he said. "Why not have everything be from Opposite Land, then. _Are_ you a Democrat?" he asked his double.

"I _do_ have morals," Other-Lassiter snapped, looking disgusted himself. "Any version of me that's a _liberal_ better not cross my path."

Lassiter nodded, looking slightly mollified. "Fine. Good."

There was an awkward silence, during which he and Other-Lassiter watched each other suspiciously and Shawn looked between the other three people in his living room. Other-Shawn yawned loudly. "What time is it?" he asked.

Other-Lassiter grudgingly took his eyes off his double and glanced at his watch. "It's almost two." He looked at Other-Shawn and frowned. "Were you asleep yet? I was just getting ready to come home."

"He was almost getting his face bashed in by a wayward tree branch," Shawn said. "That's what I saw in the mirror before he came through it."

Other-Shawn nodded. "I was getting ready to lie down, but this Wizard of Oz-level storm popped up out of nowhere, and when the Shawn in the mirror started singing at me, I thought I wasn't in Kansas anymore."

"Hey, you sang at me too," Shawn said. "I must've been the only one asleep, then, so that can't have anything to do with it."

"Well, it's late, and I somehow doubt this is going to be cleared up in the immediate future," Other-Lassiter said. "We should all get some sleep and figure out what to do in the morning."

"Sleep where?" Other-Shawn asked, eyebrows raised. "We don't have our place here."

"You can sleep on the couch," Shawn offered, pointing at it. "It pulls out. It's not the greatest, but." He shrugged.

"Cool, thanks." He looked pleased and grinned at Other-Lassiter. "I call the inside. You sleep on the outside and you can stretch out if you hang your feet over the side."

"Fine." Other-Lassiter looked tired, and he turned his back on Lassiter, seeming to dismiss him and the rest of his fucked-up day. He went over to the couch and sat down on it, raising one foot to begin untying his shoes.

Other-Shawn turned to Shawn. "Can we snag a blanket or something, if you have an extra one?"

"Oh, uh, sure. Just one?"

Other-Shawn smiled again. "We'll share."

Shawn went quickly into his bedroom, untangled the top blanket from his pile, and came back into the living room with it. He handed it over to his own mirror-twin, who grinned at him in thanks before nudging Other-Lassiter's shoes to the side of the sofa with his foot.

Lassiter shook his head briskly and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes for a moment, and Shawn recognized the gesture—he was getting or already had a headache. "If all of you are snug and cozy here, I guess I'll just head home," Lassiter said flatly. "I'll be back here at seven-thirty to discuss this—this—" He flapped a hand at the two on and near the sofa before seeming to give up and roll his eyes again. "Be awake, all of you—I want whatever the hell happened here reversed before I go in to work."

"How are we going to do that in an hour?" Shawn asked. "We don't even know what happened. It must have been _magic_. Like, serious magic. And then how are we even going to know what kind, or who caused it, or how to reverse it?"

"Oh, Jiminy Christmas, you and your psychic _magic_," Lassiter sneered. "If this is real, then whatever caused it has a logical explanation. There is _no_ magic."

"Tell that to them!" Shawn said, flinging a hand toward the spare Shawn and Lassie. "Is it logical that they're here? No. Is it a natural occurrence that they came _through_ the mirrors? No! _Magic_."

"I'm hearing a very good case for magic," Other-Shawn said.

Lassiter glared at Other-Lassiter, who was carefully loosening the knot in his tie to take it off. "Seriously?" he asked in a low voice. "_Him_? Just tell me how you can justify being with someone who's nothing but a manipulative fraud, a liar?"

Shawn felt his stomach sink a little at that, but he sighed nosily and rolled his eyes. He glanced at the other Shawn, intending to exchange a long-suffering look with him, but then he stopped when he saw realization in his double's eyes.

"Ohhh," he said softly. "I get it now."

Shawn frowned at him and shook his head a little in confusion, but he didn't have a chance to catch his eye or say anything before the other Lassie snorted. "How do I _justify_ it?" he repeated. "Easy. He _doesn't_ lie to _me_."

"And you believe that?" Lassiter asked. "Is he not pretending to be a 'psychic' in your world?" He put his fingers to his forehead sarcastically.

"The _psychic_ thing—? Oh, you actually believe that?" Other-Lassiter put a hand over his chest mockingly. "Is that adorable? I can't quite tell."

Shawn desperately tried to catch the other Shawn's eye the second before he knew what was coming, but Other-Shawn was watching both Lassiters, holding the blanket in his arms and fidgeting with a fold of fabric. "No, I _don't_ believe it," Lassiter snarled. "That's _his_ story, the only one he sticks to." Then his face changed and he looked at both Shawns, his eyes darting between them before he suddenly jabbed a finger at Other-Shawn. "_That_ one told you!" he said. "He admitted he's not psychic, and told you how he does it. Didn't he? If he '_doesn't lie_' to you? Tell me!"

Lassie gave Shawn a look that was part venom and part victory, but Shawn barely saw it as Other-Shawn finally looked at him, his eyebrows raised. Shawn's heart was in his throat and his stomach felt hollow and frozen; he knew his eyes were wide and pleading, but he couldn't help it. If his double really had told his version of Lassie the truth, and that was how they were together—and that other Lassie was fine with it, and still wanted to be with him despite the lies—then that might explain a lot.

However, it was becoming more and more clear that there was literally a world of difference between the two Lassiters, and the one Shawn had known for years was definitely more likely to arrest him than to kiss him. If there was ever a time for him to actually find out the truth, _now_ was not that time. He glanced at the other Lassie, who had started to smirk in a way that said he knew something someone else didn't and he wanted to rub it in their face. He looked at the other Shawn again and tried with all his might to send him a telepathic thought: _Help me!_


	5. Chapter 5

Lassiter was barely tired at all now—his mind felt sharp and active, the bright clarity he sometimes felt in the moments before breaking a big case wide open. He had to know. That was the only possible way the two of them could ever work in any sort of scenario, and if they were far enough along in their relationship to be calling it that, for the other version of himself to have been both protective and defensive about Shawn Smartass Spencer, he had to know the truth about him. He stared into his own face, saw his own mouth start to grin—he knew the answer, had solved the case, and would now get his credit, and sure! It was due!—and then there was movement next to him, the other Spencer dropping the comforter he was holding onto the other end of the couch.

The other Lassiter glanced up at him as he moved in front of him, and Spencer #2 didn't hesitate—he simply continued moving forward and slid onto his lap, facing him and straddling him. Lassiter's mouth dropped open in surprise when the other version of himself took that in stride, putting his hands on the other Spencer's hips automatically and looking up at him with his eyebrows slightly raised. Spencer #2 put one hand on the other Lassiter's shoulder and one hand flat on his chest, looking down at him solemnly.

"Please don't, okay?" he asked quietly.

The other Lassiter glanced at Spencer #1, who had looked terrified a moment ago and now was also goggling at the two on the sofa, before his eyes flicked back to the one on his lap. "Why not?" he asked. "I don't like it when you lie to me, Shawn."

"I know," Spencer #2 said, his voice soft and soothing. "And I don't—you know I don't. I told you the truth about all of that because I trusted you. This isn't our world, and they're not us." He smiled a little. "My evil twin would tell your evil twin if he thought he could. Let's let them get there, huh?"

Lassiter frowned—who the hell was this apparition calling evil? And what did he mean, 'let them get there'? If he was talking about Lassiter andSpencer, they weren't going to get anywhere, especially not together, not ever. Whatever went on in their world, he'd been right about one thing: this one wasn't theirs, and no matter the resemblance, the other two were not them. If the man that looked like him (and, to be fair, seemed to behave and think like him, to have at least some of his own memories, despite his indiscretion when it came to dating conmen) wanted to waste his time, that was his own lookout.

The man that looked like him seemed to be taking the other Spencer seriously, however—he looked up at him for a long moment, clearly debating, and then his eyes slid over to Lassiter himself, and they no longer looked amused or even professional, like he knew he did when reporting how he came to solve a crime. Instead, they looked closed off, considering. "You want to know how he knows things," he said. "How he solves cases, how it is he makes such impressive deductive leaps."

"He told you," Lassiter said slowly. "And it had nothing to do with magic or psychic ability."

The other Lassiter smirked then. "He's Sherlock Holmes."

"Excuse me," Lassiter said, feeling pissed off again.

Spencer #2 looked over his shoulder at him and grinned. "It's true," he said. "Gus is my Watson."

"Sherlock Holmes, like magical spirits, is not real!"

"Then figure it out, Detective," the other Lassiter said sarcastically. "You know, you probably would have already if you'd only pay a little more attention to him and give him a little more credit."

"He doesn't deserve any," Lassiter said, and shot a glare at Spencer #1. That one looked wounded for just a second—a look Lassiter had seen on him before a few times, always when Lassiter had flat out refused to give him one inch of leeway, which he wouldn't, and shouldn't have to, not with the way he carried on—and then he shrugged and turned his hands up.

"Your mind is closed to the wonders of the universe," he said, as if that explained anything at all. He paused, and then nodded his head slightly at the two on the couch. "I mean, c'mon Lassie—them being right there proves the theory of parallel universes. You can't ever give me the benefit of the doubt, even after this?"

"No," he said flatly. "Not about that. And both of them more or less confirmed that I'm right and you're lying, so don't give me that bullshit and expect that anything's changed."

Spencer sighed, glanced at the other Lassiter, who was frowning at him, and dropped his eyes to the floor. Spencer #2 then put the hand that had been the other Lassiter's shoulder on his cheek, turned his face toward him, leaned down, and kissed him. Lassiter nearly flinched at the shock of seeing it, and although the kiss was very brief, he felt something in his midsection go shaky with the visual confirmation that any version of himself was perfectly comfortable with Shawn Spencer in his lap, that he, in any world or any universe, could kiss him back and then look up at him and smile.

"Um," Spencer #1 said, and when Lassiter glanced at him he saw that he was staring at the other two, although he looked a little confused. "I guess—I'm going to go to bed too? That's—do you guys think you can get the bed pulled out?"

"Never fear, Mirror-Me," Spencer #2 said cheerfully. "We're great at pulling out. Ahh!" he shouted, as the other Lassiter suddenly hooked both hands underneath his legs and lifted upward sharply, dropping him onto the floor.

Lassiter actually approved of that, but he didn't want to give the entirely too smug version of himself the satisfaction, so he just rolled his eyes and turned for the door. "Seven-thirty," he said loudly, over his shoulder. "For all we know, these two will be back where they belong—if that's actually anywhere—when we wake up. Otherwise, no, I don't expect we can get this cleared up in an hour, but if there's any way at all, we're going to find it."

He turned around for a moment when he reached the door, giving each one of them a stern look, although only Spencer #1 seemed to take notice of him, watching him carefully and then nodding while the other Lassiter stood up and offered his hand to Spencer #2 and helped him to his feet. Spencer #2 smiled and pulled himself up, and—just for a bare instant, a sliver of a moment, Lassiter got a picture of himself (his real self, not the lookalike that needed a shave and was actually kind of a smartass) looking down at him, looking into those bright hazel eyes and seeing him smile, and then bending his neck and kissing him.

He blinked a couple of times rapidly to clear his head, and found himself looking at Spencer again, but he wasn't smiling. Lassiter couldn't tell what the look on his face was, but it didn't matter—in a second, it was gone, and he was turning away, toward his bedroom. Lassiter turned away, too, to get out of this apartment and this insanity, this impossibility.

He drove home fast and went directly to his bed, but although he was so tired that his body ached, his thoughts swam until he felt as if he would drown in them. He closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep, but he could still see a double of himself falling out of a mirror and into his world, he could still hear Spencer's voice on the phone saying "Carlton", and he could still feel the dive his stomach had made when the Spencer and Lassiter from another universe had kissed and held on to each other, as if that was the only thing that mattered.


	6. Chapter 6

Shawn couldn't sleep. He tried to, he really did, but he was too wired, too shocked, too freaked. He laid in his bed for hours, at first slightly terrified that he would hear the creaky pull-out sofa bed start to rock and roll, but after some initial shifting around—clear sounds of the other two just getting settled—his apartment was quiet. His mind refused to turn off, showing him again and again everything he'd seen from the moment he'd come back from the bathroom and saw a different room—and a different Shawn—reflected in his mirror, to the utterly appalled look on Lassie's face when the other Shawn kissed the other Lassie and, instead of getting a punch in the face, he was kissed back.

Shawn had never in his life wanted so much to be just a different version of himself in a slightly different world—one where he wasn't trapped into sticking with his story instead of exposing himself, and Gus, and his father, and possibly putting in jeopardy all of the arrests and convictions that had come from his consultations to the police department. He'd never thought it could go on this long, and most of the time it didn't bother him, not with how much fun it was and how much good he did, how well he was actually able to work what he'd been born with and how much his dad had taught him. Most times, when the reminder that the facade actually couldn't go on forever cropped up, he would brush it aside and think about something that kept his spirits high, but sometimes, he wondered what would really happen. Clearly, the other Shawn had come clean, had made it work for him—Shawn was really going to have to ask him how it had happened, how he'd avoided getting arrested and had gotten himself into an actual relationship with Lassie instead. If they could figure out how they'd gotten here, and how to get them back, he might not ever know, but his gut told him that something majorly Twilight Zone was going on, and that shit was actually rarely solved in one hour (minus commercials).

When it had been light for a while, Shawn got up and quietly headed for the bathroom, stopping to poke his head into the living room, only meaning to glimpse the digital clock on his cable box. He saw two things: one was that it was almost seven o'clock, so he had plenty of time for a shower. The other was that Lassie was wrong—their doppelgangers hadn't disappeared into the mist overnight; they were still very much there, scrunched together on the short pull-out sofa bed. They were asleep and looked very cozy indeed, so cozy that Shawn felt a spark of jealousy at the way the other Shawn was snuggled into Other-Lassie's side, sleeping with his head on one of his shoulders and one arm curled onto his chest while one of Other-Lassiter's arms held him around the back and his other hand rested on his outstretched arm. Cuddly bastards.

He showered quickly and dressed in his room, and then he put together a second set of clothes for Other-Shawn. He debated whether or not to extend the same favor to Other-Lassie, but he very much doubted he had anything that would fit the other man. Maybe Lassie would get generous and donate some threads to the cause, but that was probably overreaching. Shawn went into the living room, stopping when he saw Other-Lassie sitting up against the back of the sofa in his undershirt, frowning and looking around.

"Uh, hi," Shawn said tentatively.

The other Lassie looked at him, frowned more deeply, glanced at the Shawn who was still asleep next to him, and sat up straighter. "Still here," he said carefully, just in case Shawn forgot what had happened, or woke up thinking that the clones were attacking. "What time is it?"

Shawn nodded at the cable box under his TV. "Seven twenty-one."

Other-Lassie eyed the pile of clothes in Shawn's arms. "Those for him?" he asked. "I assume you don't have anything that would fit me."

"Yeah, sorry." As much as he would have liked to have an extra set of Lassie's clothes just hanging around his apartment should the other man need to freshen up, that had never seemed so far from an option.

Shawn watched as Other-Lassie laid a hand on Other-Shawn's shoulder and shook him gently. Other-Shawn mumbled something and tried to shove his face underneath the throw pillow he'd been sleeping with, and Other-Lassie calmly took it from him and pulled the blanket entirely off of him him in order to wake him up. Other-Shawn opened one eye to give his boyfriend a pseudo-glare, and Shawn thought two things: one was that it really was annoying to have to try to wake him up sometimes. Huh. He guessed Gus got two points on that one. The second was that he was fairly dying to know how these two had gotten together, and how they'd made it work to the point that Other-Shawn now attempted to bury his face in Other-Lassiter's side to escape the bright light of morning, and Other-Lassiter just smiled a little and lightly ran a finger behind his ear. Other-Shawn squirmed and hunched his shoulders, attempting to both stay hidden and to ward off the wake-up war.

Other-Lassie then petted his head a little and said, in a low but firm voice, "Come on, Shawn—up."

Other-Shawn groaned but sat up, his slightly harried and still sleepy look disappearing at once the second his eyes fell on Shawn; he recoiled and let out a cry, holding both hands up in front of his face. "No!" he said. "I thought I had a freak-fest dream about seeing myself when my hair looked like that! I don't like this game! Quit without saving!"

"Hey!" Shawn said, drawing himself up and then holding up the shirt he'd brought out. "I was going to let you wear my ThunderCats shirt, man. One more word and I'll break out the Boy Scouts one Jules made me buy for her nephews' fundraiser, and that's just going to look weird. Orange is most definitely not your color."

Other-Shawn lowered his hands and considered the threat. "I concede the point, although that's also my ThunderCats shirt." He accepted the clothes and looked pleased at the inclusion of shorts and a ball of socks. "Thanks, Evil Twin. Hey, do you have anything Carlton can wear?"

"Not unless he wants to look like a stripper getting ready to shuck the skintight breakaway outfit."

Other-Shawn gave Other-Lassie a considering look, and started to grin, but the other Lassie just rolled his eyes and turned to put his feet on the floor. "No," he said. "I'll figure something else out while we're stuck here."

"Maybe Lassie can bring you some of his," Shawn suggested, although _fat chance_ rose to mind immediately after.

Sure enough, when Lassiter showed up, he was in such an ungenerous mood that he hadn't even brought everyone coffee and donuts, although Shawn knew of at least twenty places for such items he would have passed on the way over. He was shaved now but had clearly done too quick of a job of it and still looked grizzled, his throat a little red from the razor. His eyes were also a little haggard, and when Shawn opened the door to let him in, he looked past his shoulder, saw their doppelgangers both sitting on the sofa, and winced, starting to rub at his forehead already.

"Great, they're still here," he muttered. "So much for that idea."

"Lassie, come on in," Shawn said, standing aside and making a little bow. "Welcome to the wonderful world of mirror men; after breakfast, we're all going to come up with synchronized dances and go make drunk people think they're seeing quadruple."

"Shut it, Spencer," Lassiter snapped as he entered and Shawn closed the door behind him. "I have absolutely no patience for your twaddle today."

"Is a twaddle like a tweak?" Other-Shawn asked.

"Is a tattle like a sneak?" Shawn countered.

"I could just leave," Lassiter threatened, glaring at both of them. "Leave all of you to figure this out—I have nothing to do with whatever caused it, and I have work to do at the station."

"So do I, but apparently I'm stuck here," Other-Lassie said.

"Why don't you consult the _spirits_, Spencer?" Lassiter asked, making sarcastic air quotes. "Use your _psychic magic_ to find out what the hell happened and how to get them back."

"Um..." Shawn said, while Admiral Ackbar shouted in his head that it was a trap. Besides, he was now seriously uncertain when it came to his previous beliefs that magic didn't actually exist—if these two were here, didn't it just about _have_ to, in some incarnation or another? So psychic magic probably _was_ out there; unfortunately, however, he didn't have it. "I guess the first step would be... to figure out what the similarities in our experiences are, and if there are any big differences, and then... talk to some other psychics and dealers of the mystic to... find out if they know anything." It was lame, and although he did plan to stop by some shops specializing in magick-with-a-k as soon as he could, his proposed plan was more logical and real-detectivey than he normally would have let on around Lassie or basically anyone that wasn't Gus or his dad.

"I like it," Other-Shawn said. "Here's my account: It was a dark and stormy night. Fiddleston, the butler, had just turned in for the night, so 'twas myself and the ghost of the manor, R. Hanksworth Ackleberry, left to our nefarious devices. Now, Ackleberry was normally the most supine of companions, but when the thunder scared the ghoul-pee out of him, I sent him straight away and was left with the lingering smell of spectral urine. Upon my discovery that Resolve doesn't clean the carpets when your soul has devolved, I retired to my chambers where—much to my consternation—I was met with a startling figure from my past: the ghost of the good Lady Beulah Mae Diddlesworthingshire, come to evoke her long-standing threat of a haunted poo or two. 'Alas!' I shouted, twiddling my eyebrows, 'if only I'd changed the spirit litter box!'"

"Stop!" Lassie said, rolling his eyes and holding up a hand. Other-Shawn stopped talking but exchanged a smirk with Shawn, who had been enjoying the tale, while Other-Lassie frowned slightly, his eyes far off. "For the love of—_you_ don't care that he just sits there and babbles like a broken Edgar Wallace Plot Wheel?" Lassiter demanded, giving his double an exasperated look.

"Hmm?" Other-Lassie glanced at him, and then at Other-Shawn, who grinned at him. "Oh. I wasn't listening. Did you say you fell through the mirror?"

Other-Shawn nodded. "I was backing up from the window in our bedroom breaking, from the glass zooming in at cut-rate speed, and I sort of tripped over the frame and fell backwards into him."

"So, nobody pushed you? No one else was around?"

"Nope, not that I saw."

"That's right, you said you were pushed," Lassiter said, frowning himself. "Pushed how?"

"From behind—I was standing in front of the one-way mirror, not walking or backing away from anything," Other-Lassie said. "I felt a shove from the back, and was knocked forward. I put my hands up, expecting to hit the glass, and instead I went through it and landed on the floor in front of you."

"Was it a shove like someone's hands?" Shawn asked. "And are you sure it was a push, not a pull?"

"It was definitely a push," Other-Lassie said slowly. "But I suppose I couldn't swear in court that it was from hands. I was alone in the room prior to that, and it happened so fast that no one would have had time to get the drop on me."

"What about, um... seeing things in the mirrors earlier in the day?" Other-Shawn asked. "Because twice I think I saw _him_ instead of me."

"Same here," Shawn said. "Once right after I gave you my statement about the murderous mistress, Lassie, and the second time was right before it happened. Did you guys...?"

"Yes," Lassiter said reluctantly. "But both times were very brief, and I chalked it up to being so exhausted."

"Looks like there's more of a physical difference with me and my evil twin versus Carlton and his evil twin," Other-Shawn said. "Mostly in the hair-wear."

"Stop calling me 'evil twin'!" Shawn said, indignant. "You came through _my_ mirror, and your hair is nowhere near as awesome. You're the evil one."

"Am not," Other-Shawn said. "I'm good—I'm so good that Carlton says I'm his good boy. Don't you?"

"Most of the time," Other-Lassiter agreed.

"Ha!" Other-Shawn crowed, while Lassie grimaced before shaking his head.

"Back on subject," he said. "So we all experienced a glimpse at the—what, the other world?—before anything major happened. Anything in common to have caused it?"

Shawn shrugged. "I was just looking in the mirror after washing my hands in the men's at the station before I came home. Nothing else weird happened."

"What time was it?" Other-Shawn asked.

"I don't know. Time to get a new watch?"

"You left the interview room where I had you write out your statement at approximately six-thirty," Lassiter said.

Other-Shawn's eyes widened a little. "Okay, wow. That was about when I saw Mirror-Me change."

Lassiter sighed and dropped onto the edge of the armchair near the sofa. "Okay, full accounts, including times and places. Spencer, get everyone something to take notes on and something to write with. Then we'll compare and see if we can get a timeline of shared experiences and events."

Twenty minutes later, Lassie had four pages of notes, and they had determined that at roughly the same exact times, both Shawns and both Lassiters had seen their doubles in mirrors instead of themselves, and that Other-Shawn and Other-Lassie had come through the mirrors into Shawn and Lassie's world at the same time, along with both mirrors breaking just after they hit the floors. Shawn had been the only one not awake when the storm had started, so he couldn't say, but the other three mentioned that they had taken notice of it because it had seemed to start out of nowhere, and had almost immediately been very intense. Other-Shawn was insistent that he thought the storm had something to do with it, and Shawn thought that he was probably right.

Lassiter sighed and straightened his pages of notes. "I have to get to work," he said. "The three of you go over what else there might be in common, see if you think of any way you can go back through. Call me if there are any developments."

"We can't be sure if there's anything in common with all four of us if we don't get your side," Shawn said.

"I have to go to work, Spencer. I have cases that won't wait for this—this absurdity to clear up."

"I wonder if you're working on the same cases," Other-Shawn mused.

Other-Lassie glanced at Lassiter. "Barragan murder?"

Lassiter shook his head. "Merrick possible-suicide. I think it was murder."

Other-Shawn grinned. "You're right. We actually solved that one last month."

"You did," Other-Lassie said.

"You helped," Other-Shawn said. "You loosened it up like a pickle jar, with your strong hands and your long fingers and your—um, figurative banging the victim's business rival against the counter so I could unscrew his head."

"Wow, you two are into all sorts of stuff," Shawn said. Other-Shawn gave him a wink.

"Right, whatever," Other-Lassiter said. "The point is that you figured out what he did and found the evidence which pinned him to it. Case solved, onto the next one." He seemed to think for a moment, and then he nodded decisively. "I'm not sitting around here all day. I'll come with you and get that murder wrapped up, and then you'll probably get the one I'm on now. If both of us are working on it, we can get it done twice as fast while these two investigate what happened to us."

"All right," Lassiter said doubtfully, and then he pointed at Shawn. "But I want to see real progress, none of your clowning around and playing games and eating snacks instead of working."

"I can do both," Shawn insisted. "How do you think I've been solving cases all along?"

Lassiter folded his arms. "Why don't you tell me?"

Shawn was tempted to, but now still wasn't the time, and he still wasn't entirely sure that he wouldn't end up in a jail cell—despite what was going on with their other-world selves, this world's Lassie wasn't exhibiting any more leniency toward Shawn than he ever had; in fact, the situation seemed to have made him even more pissed off about it. Shawn glanced at his other self for help again.

"You can clown and play games, and I'll get a churro and go see a man about some eye of newt," Other-Shawn suggested.

Lassiter sighed. "Great, so you're suggesting that only fifty percent of the two of you is taking this seriously."

"I want a churro," Shawn said.

"Nope, it'll mess with your clown makeup," Other-Shawn told him. "I need you on squeaky-nose point while I'm checking into random thunderstorms used for casting alternate-universe spells."

"Are you two going to actually be able to get anything done?" Other-Lassiter asked, frowning again. "I know you can work, Shawn, but you're having too much fun with this already and I don't want to be here one more minute than we have to."

"I'll work—we'll work," Other-Shawn promised. "We'll double-team it. Shawn Spencer and Shawn Spencer on the case, that'll double the pace."

"We're two, two, two mints in one," Shawn added. "Okay. C'mon, Good Twin, let's go to the Psych office and make a plan of action."

"Keep checking in," Other-Lassie told Other-Shawn, and he smiled slightly. "If you solve it, don't go back without me."

"Never," Other-Shawn promised seriously. "I don't want to be there either if you're not there."

"Can we go?" Lassiter asked, sounding annoyed. Shawn sighed quietly, wishing that the mere idea of them together, even in another world and being different versions of themselves, didn't piss him off. He still didn't know if their Other-selves being in a relationship gave him hope that one day he and Lassie would be, or that it was possible for them to be, or if it just depressed him, because they were different and it wasn't meant to happen in this world.

"Yeah," Other-Lassiter said, and stood up. Other-Shawn stood too, looking up at his boyfriend hopefully, and then he smiled when Other-Lassie bent his neck down enough to give him a quick kiss before turning and heading for the door. Lassiter went through it and down the hall without a look back, but Other-Lassie glanced over his shoulder again before closing the door behind him.

"Great," Other-Shawn said, rubbing his hands together. "Let's make a plan and get some breakfast."

"In that order?" Shawn asked, wondering if the sad puppy eyes worked on himself.

Other-Shawn gave him a look. "C'mon, son!" he said.

"Sweet." Shawn grinned. "Let's go freak out that snotty barista at the Black Stream Coffee Co."

"Excellent, I hate that guy."

"No, no—we're a team, Other-Shawn. _We_ hate that guy. Now let's go order two drastically different things and then insist he's Jack and we're Annette and he's doing it wrong."


	7. Chapter 7

"You can come with me, but you need to stay out of sight," Lassiter told his double as they walked to his car. He lifted his key fob to unlock the doors, and then he paused. "In fact, you get in the back and lie down on the seat," he directed. "I don't want anyone I know seeing you and having a coronary."

"Who do you know that doesn't at least partly deserve one?" his double asked.

That was a good point, but again, he didn't want to give the scruffy bastard the satisfaction. "My world, my car, my rules," he said.

"Fine," the other man said, unexpectedly agreeing. Lassiter was surprised for a moment before he continued speaking and ruined it. "But first, you're going to take me by your place. I need clothes—your clothes."

Lassiter made a face, but he recognized the necessity. "Fine," he said, and mentally set aside his least-liked suit and tie. "You can shave the crap off your face too."

The other man shrugged unconcernedly, and Lassiter unlocked the car. They both got in, and when he checked his doppelganger in the back seat, he couldn't help a small smirk at the uncomfortable way the other man's long legs were bent up so that he would remain out of sight. His double saw it and glared at him, but before he could speak or attempt to get in the front seat anyway, Lassiter started the car and backed out of Spencer's parking lot and onto the road. He switched the radio on for the news as he drove, but he was only partly listening, almost not realizing that his thoughts were, once again, drawn back to Spencer (and Spencer #2), wondering how they were going to manage working together and if they would actually figure anything out. It was ridiculous to hope so, but then, there was a mirror-version of himself bent up like a grasshopper caught in the middle of a game of Twister in his back seat, so who was counting?

His mind brought him a flash of an image, his other self kissing Spencer #2 goodbye before they left Spencer #1's apartment, and his hands tightened on the steering wheel. _It made no sense_. Even if the other Spencer had found it within himself to stop lying with every other breath for two minutes, long enough to come clean about how he could actually do what he did, and what exactly it was he was doing, the man was downright annoying. His mouth never stopped moving, whether he was babbling or stuffing his face, he made unfunny jokes constantly, he didn't take police work seriously, he was lazy and had no solid work ethic—which really said something, considering who was his father, and Lassiter didn't see Henry Spencer slacking when it came to attempting to instill such values and respect in his son. Spencer must have been nearly out of the realm of instructible when it came to lessons on how to behave like a presentable human person. So why on Earth...? What could any version of himself possibly see as potential for an actual relationship there? He was very glad he hadn't been pulled into that other world instead of his other self coming through to his own—that other world must be a highly illogical place, and Lassiter wanted no part of it.

"So, judging by your screaming heebie-jeebies, I'm assuming your date with Adam Lucas turned you back toward the other team a lot more than it did me," his double said from the back.

Lassiter nearly jerked in his seat, stamping down on the brakes too abruptly as they came to a yellow light. As the light turned red, he threw a warning glare over his shoulder. "What are you talking about?" he demanded.

The other man looked back at him blandly, his own interrogation-room stare. "I'm merely trying to ascertain why you've been getting so pissy over the idea of me and Shawn together. You're repressed. Sad. I was able to move past it."

Lassiter felt his shoulders tighten as he turned back in his seat to watch the traffic light. "I am not repressed—I'm private about my life and my interests, which simply do not happen to include Spencer."

"See, now, I somehow doubt that," the other man said, now sounding amused, which made Lassiter angrier. He was the one in the worst idea for a relationship since Bill and Hillary Clinton—what gave him the right to make judgments on anyone else's? "Let's look at the evidence. You practically started spitting at Shawn from your world when my Shawn sat in my lap and when I kissed him. Either you're repressed and revolted—you know, quite a lot of homophobia is internalized—or you want him but refuse to let it happen. I have a hard time believing that you didn't get enough misery being married to Victoria—and dealing with her leaving you—so you voluntarily choose to be alone when you could be with someone instead. So, you don't consider Shawn an option and, although he stirs up conflicting feelings in you, you have a strong negative reaction to the idea and display of being in a relationship with him because he's a man."

"That's not why," Lassiter said sourly. The light turned green and he almost tromped the gas, imagining throwing his smarmy double hard against the back seat, but again, didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he was getting to him in any way. He edged the gas pedal smoothly instead and got them back on the way to his apartment, but his jaw was clenched.

"So you admit that you're interested in men."

"I'm interested in people I'm interested in," he said shortly.

"_People_ like Shawn?" the other man pressed.

"I'm not talking about this with you," Lassiter said. "There's an obvious major difference between the Spencer you're seeing and the one I know, and if you can't see that, that's not my problem. You're _not_ me and I don't care what you do with your free time, so you can just shut it about mine."

"The difference isn't just with him," the other man said quietly.

Lassiter was in a terrible mood again by the time he pulled into his own parking lot. "Let's make this snappy," he said. "I get you clothes, you change and shave, we go. I don't want to be any later than necessary, even if you do claim I solve that murder today."

"With my help—and Shawn's help," his other self said, extricating himself from the back of the car and shaking his leg as if it had gone to sleep. "And if you don't want to be late, just get me the clothes. I wouldn't mind waiting until tomorrow to shave."

"You're unprofessional," Lassiter snapped at him as they went inside the building. "I can't believe the chief lets you get away with that."

His double snorted. "With the number of criminals I put away, especially since Shawn's been helping me and cutting my legwork in half? I practically run that place." He reached up and ran a hand lightly across his lower jaw. "Shaving is a time-consuming pain in the ass," he said. "And Shawn likes me this way."

Lassiter bristled at that. "I don't give a good goddamn what Spencer likes or doesn't like," he said as he unlocked his door. "When you're in my world, you're reflecting poorly on me, and I'm calling the shots." He pointed to the door that led to the bathroom. The other man rolled his eyes, but he turned and headed down the hall. While he went, Lassiter diverted to his bedroom and reached into the back of his closet for the suit he'd pictured earlier, wrinkling his lip at it and being glad he had one on hand that he actually wouldn't mind never getting back. He pulled together the rest of the clothes he would need—undershirt, shorts, button down shirt, black socks, tie—and then stood in the bathroom doorway, watching his other self finish up scraping the bristles from his throat. His double glanced at him in the mirror but said nothing.

When he was finished, Lassiter handed over the clothes and went to wait for him in the living room, standing uncertainly in the middle of the room for almost a minute before scowling and putting his hands on his hips and then restlessly beginning to pace, circling the sofa and then going to the kitchen to walk around the table before going back to the living room and making another lap. His double had been shaving in his undershirt, and Lassiter had thought he'd seen what looked like a bite mark on his shoulder. _Shawn_, he mused, hearing the name in his mind as coming from the other man's mouth, and he paced faster, wishing he would hurry the Christ up so that he (they) could just go to work. O'Hara was off for a week starting today, and while he normally didn't mind working by himself, this was something else altogether.

At just after seven o'clock that night, he and his double met both Spencers at the Psych Agency office; both Lassiters glared at each other while both Spencers beamed and chattered brightly. "Lassie!" Spencer #1 said giddily, nearly hopping in one spot. "You'll never guess what we found out today. We're the _only ones_ who saw that storm! The whole rest of Santa Barbara didn't see a thing—it wasn't raining cats, or dogs, or even men."

"Which is great, considering the mess that would have made," Spencer #2 said, sliding onto the small sofa in the window next to the other Lassiter. "And also great because it's a lead—the storm definitely had something to do with it."

"Great," Lassiter said, leaning against Guster's desk with his arms folded across his chest. "I found out that, apparently, no one but the two of us can see that the one-way mirror in the interview room where he came through is broken." He indicated the other Lassiter with his thumb. "Chief Vick didn't mention anything about it to me when I met with her today, so I went down to look. Still broken in lines. I called McNab over and told him to go down there to get a folder I left behind, and he didn't give any indication that he noticed anything out of the ordinary either."

"But it's McNab, so who really knows," the other Lassiter said. "I looked too—it's definitely still broken."

Both Spencers looked surprised, and they exchanged a look. "Just like the storm," Spencer #2 said.

Spencer #1 nodded. "There's some super-shady concentrated spellwork going on here, if only those of us affected by it can see the physical side-effects."

Lassiter sighed tiredly. "So what's your next step?"

"I think to talk to a few more psychics I—we know of," Spencer #1 said. "Today we just went by the ones who are faker than Lindsay Lohan's sobriety. I want to know if any of the others saw it, or if it was seriously just us. If anyone did, they'd be the first to know its relevance and maybe how we can reverse what caused it and what happened."

"And if you can't find anyone that did see it?" It sounded like a stretch to Lassiter, but it wasn't like he had any other ideas to offer, and at least it was keeping them busy.

"There's bound to be at least one who'll have suggestions on where to go from there," Spencer #2 said. "We're not even sure where to start—I mean, we thought of spell books, to research how to universe-jump, but there are so many." He looked at the other Lassiter. "While my Evil Twin over there was talking to a magick shop owner, I leafed through a book and found out how to turn mean neighbors into _verminae_ including rats and squirrels. I memorized it for when we get back to our own world and the d-bag across the hall starts talking really loud about traditional marriage values when we come home. Happy late birthday."

The other Lassiter snorted. "I'm not sure such a transformation would make a difference."

"Aha, but it would—then I'd get a fleet of cats." He glanced at Spencer #1. "A fleet?"

Spencer #1 shrugged. "A pride? No, that's lions. But lions are cats."

"Clowder," Lassiter supplied.

Spencer #1 looked at him. "Clown chowder?"

The other Lassiter snorted again. "A group of cats is called a clowder."

"You're so smart." Spencer #2 grinned at him. "Can I get a clowder of cats?"

"We'll talk about it later."

"Cool. Did you take care of that not-a-suicide murder?"

"Yes," the other Lassiter said, giving Lassiter an annoyed look. "And now I know how frustrated it must have made you when I refused to believe you on cases when you _knew_ the answers."

Lassiter glared back at him. "_Your word_ is not evidence. I can't believe I have to keep reminding you of that! Just because you apparently take _his_ word on everything under the sun in your own world doesn't mean I have enough evidence for a search warrant in mine. What was I supposed to tell the chief, 'My smartass double says the poison's at Geoff Rogers' house'?"

"It would have been a lot faster than having to track him down and put the squeeze on him by lying and saying you were looking at his wife for it," his double said, frowning. His eyes slid over to Spencer #1 for a moment before coming back. "It also would have been faster if you just called _that_ Shawn in on the case—he might have had a _psychic vision_."

Lassiter saw Spencer #1 blink in surprise, and his lips parted slightly, but he didn't want to give him a chance to talk. "I told you no—he has nothing to do with that case, or with any of my cases, unless he butts in. I was solving cases for years before he turned up, or don't you remember that? Maybe you're too reliant on however he frauds it up in your world to do your own detective work."

"What's important is that the case gets solved, and with enough evidence in the end to convict and put away a lowlife criminal to the fullest extent of the law," the other Lassiter said calmly.

"And that it's done with proper police procedure!"

"Say that five times fast," Spencer #1 said to his own double. Spencer #2 snorted softly but didn't interject anything himself.

"Proper police procedure is preventing crime when you can, and solving them and convicting the perpetrators when you can't," the other Lassiter said. "The rest is negotiating politics and red tape while crimes are committed under your nose. You know, I looked at your arrest record while you were finishing up your report on Rogers. In the last year I've made arrests on 41% more cases than you have, and all but three of those arrests stuck. I'm breaking records for cases solved in the last year, and you're being made to sound foolish in local newspapers. Guess why."

Lassiter clenched his fists. He'd told his creepy mirror image to stay in the car, not wander around _his_ police department and end up drawing attention to something he still hoped was a bad dream and that no one else would ever be aware had happened. "You're obviously getting different cases than I am and at different times, otherwise we wouldn't have had the exact same one just weeks apart. You mentioned a kidnapping earlier today that I've never heard of, as well. If you're getting easier cases then it doesn't at all prove you're a better detective or that that clairvoyant clown is actually helping at all."

"Clairvoyant clowns would be an awesome circus addition," Spencer #1 said, and closed his eyes, putting two fingers on his right temple. "I'm getting... pie in the face. But after that, a midget with a flower on his lapel and the sad eyes of a Britney Spears backup dancer is going to come along with the seltzer water, so we'll be tidied up in a jiffy."

Lassiter rolled his eyes. "Whatever. It's late and I'm hungry, and I've had enough of this nonsense for the rest of the night. I'm going home if there's nothing else we can do to try to reverse this nightmare tonight. I'm going to regret asking this, but did you two actually find out anything else worthwhile at the hippie five-and-dime?"

"The owners of the spell shops that we actually wanted to go to were all gone before we came here," Spencer #2 said.

Lassiter glanced at him. "And you didn't think to get their names to go talk to them at their homes?"

He shrugged. "We tried, but the first one wouldn't talk to us because there was something funky going on with some alignment somewhere and she needed to throw together a séance, and the next one—the one we should talk to first tomorrow—would barely let _us_ talk to try to explain, because he said he could tell we were the same person but from different worlds, and he was going to transform his wife from a cat back to a person so that she could do a 'real' reading on our auras."

"My aura is clean and sparkly fresh and totally dope," Spencer #1 said. "I just got it back from the fly cleaners."

"We didn't try the other two since we figured we could just get them all tomorrow in succession, and then Carlton called and said you two wanted to meet us here," Spencer #2 went on. "That's the plan for now. If any of them actually know anything, we can find out what, and what to do about it. If they don't, we can do more research to see if any of those spell books or anything has anything useful. In the meantime, though..." He paused and leaned to one side, rummaging in his pocket and then coming out with what looked like a deck of cards, which he offered to the other Lassiter. "I found Sexy Tarot Cards. Want to find out our fates? There's a Magician and a Hung Man in there."

"I thought Gus said it was The Hanged Man," Spencer #1 said.

"He was wrong," Spencer #2 said, and grinned.

"That's it, I'm out of here," Lassiter said, and he left before that conversation could possibly get any more embarrassing. He didn't go right home, though—he was still feeling shell-shocked at the absurdity of the situation as a whole, not to mention so frustrated with 'himself' and how that man could possibly be a version of him when he was _so irritating_, that he decided a few hours at the shooting range would take his mind off of it and help him relax.

The next morning, he reluctantly went back to Spencer's apartment, this time bringing his second most-disliked suit and extra clothes so that he wouldn't have to deal with carting his know-it-all double back to his own place for him to change. He'd gotten a call from Chief Vick to come directly to her office for his day's assignment and was more than ready to go, but first, some new ground rules needed to be laid out and understood by everyone.

"Today is not going to be a repeat of yesterday," he said, once Spencer had gotten fresh clothes for his double and the other Lassiter looked presentable enough so that Lassiter himself didn't want to rub the side of his face against a piece of sandpaper. He pointed at said other Lassiter, who put his hands on his hips and raised his eyebrows challengingly. Lassiter thought that he probably wouldn't be so cocky after he gave them _their_ new assignments. "I am not taking you with me to work, and I'm not working with you," he said firmly. "You take _that_ Spencer—" Here his pointed index finger aimed at Spencer #1, who looked like a surprised chipmunk with his cheeks full of Frosted Flakes, "—and go look into the so-called psychics and magic shop owners they were onto yesterday. If nothing else, you're police-trained, so you should be able to keep him in line enough to make some actual progress."

"We made progress!" Spencer #2 protested. "We asked about the storm, and we found out that most people didn't see it, and we tracked down two out of the four people who claim to seriously be real psychics who might know what happened—"

"And we found a muffin shop that will bake you anything you want in fifteen minutes, including a pineapple and strawberry with vanilla-orange glaze that's the size of your _head_," Spencer #1 said. "We even got buy-one-get-one-free because the pastry chef thought we were twins and said it was only fair because of the BOGO our parents got."

Lassiter briefly envisioned Henry Spencer trying to deal with twin Shawns, or this situation in particular, and he shook his head briskly. "I don't care about your muffin discoveries. I have a murder to deal with, and _you_—" and here he pointed to Spencer #2, who also looked surprised, but had finished his bowl of cereal and had actually been sitting quietly instead of refilling it for a second round of The Stuffed Face Race like Spencer #1 apparently had, "—are coming with me."

"Me? Um... okay? Why?"

"Because I don't trust the two of you being able to not screw around long enough to get this entire freakshow taken care of, and I'm not working with him." Lassiter gave Spencer #1 a disapproving look before glancing at Spencer #2 again. "You're actually moderately less annoying," he said grudgingly. "So. You're with me, _if_ you can follow orders and do what I tell you."

"I can," Spencer #2 said, and smiled very slightly. He darted a glance at the other Lassiter, but he didn't look at him, just continued scowling at Lassiter.

"That'll be a shock and I'll believe it when I see it," Lassiter said. "Come on, then." He looked at the other Lassiter and at the original Spencer, who were now sizing each other up. "Can you two handle working together on this so that our doubles can go home and we can all get back to our normal lives?"

"Sure," Spencer said brightly, although his eyes looked worried. "Actually, this might help—I can't count the number of places I could get in to if I had a cop with a real badge with me."

"You don't think the psychics will refuse to talk to us if they know I'm a cop?" the other Lassiter asked.

"Being a psychic isn't illegal, Lassie."

The other man snorted, though this time he sounded impatient rather than amused. "Right. I'm sure none of their 'herbal supplements' are illegal either." He looked at Spencer #2 and crooked a finger at him. "Come here."

Lassiter tried—he really did—to refrain from rolling his eyes as the other Spencer got up from his chair at the kitchen table and presented himself in front of the other Lassiter with his hands clasped neatly behind his back and a smile on his face. The other Lassiter looked down at him for a moment and then leaned forward slightly, murmuring something into his ear, to which Spencer #2 listened and then nodded solemnly. The other Lassiter reached up to cup his jaw for just a second, his thumb gently stroking the skin of his cheek, and then he dropped his hand and made eye-contact with Spencer #1, tilting his head toward the door.

"Move," he said. "I want to talk to those store owners and find out if there really is any truth to that bull crap about us being the only ones that saw a freak thunderstorm and what bearing spells or curses or whatever might or might not have on what happened to us."

Spencer #1 was on his feet instantly, standing up straight with his eyes gleaming but still watchful. "Awesome," he said. "I know right where to start. See you later, Good Twin and Original-Flavor Lassie."

"Does that sound like a porno?" Spencer #2 asked, hooking his thumbs into his jeans pockets as Spencer #1 followed Lassiter's double out the door and down the hall. Lassiter thought that he may have jumped the gun thinking that this version of Spencer could actually be less irritating than the one he'd known for years. He sighed wearily and motioned for Spencer to follow him, so that he could get on with his murder investigation, _not_ wondering if it really was possible that this Spencer would be of any help to him.


	8. Chapter 8

After Other-Lassie spent almost an entire minute of trying to push the driver's seat of the Blueberry back farther than its manufacturers intended, Shawn gestured to the passenger side instead. "I could drive and you could stretch out there," he offered. "I know where we're going, anyway. All you have to do is sit there and look pretty."

Other-Lassie gave him an exasperated look. "Don't call me pretty," he snapped. "And _I'll_ drive—I'm the senior officer here."

"I'm not an officer at all, so that's moot," Shawn pointed out. "And this isn't even my car—Gus only said I could drive it while he was out of town if I had a case. I do have a case—the Mysterious Mayhem of Mirror Men—so you should just chill over here and be my chief navigator while I pilot this vessel."

"It's not a ship, Shawn," Other-Lassie said, but he seemed to be reconsidering. Shawn waited, savoring the sound of his first name coming from his mouth, and after another moment Other-Lassie sighed and hoisted himself out of the seat. "Fine," he said, and he went around to the passenger side. "Drive. Tell me about the first suspect we're trying to find."

"Well, first? He's not a suspect." Shawn paused, thinking about that while adjusting the driver's seat back to where it'd been. "Okay, maybe he is? I guess I don't know, since we have no idea what happened. I didn't notice anything weird about him yesterday, other than the fact that he apparently turned his wife into a cat. Or maybe she turned herself into a cat but couldn't get back—I wasn't really clear on that. He did say he was going to put out some tuna for her last night, though, and hopefully we could talk to them both this morning."

"He was the one who sensed some dis-alignment with the universe waves, or whatever?"

"No, that was the other one, the Ukrainian woman. The dude we talked to said he could tell from our auras that we were the same person. Which was really freaky, considering that we don't look _exactly_ alike—more like twins than the literal same person. I didn't even know I had an aura, has, uh, your Shawn ever mentioned his?"

"No."

Shawn had started the car and turned to look over his shoulder to get them out onto the road, and when he glanced at Other-Lassie, he saw his jaw tighten briefly and he seemed to stop breathing for a few seconds—he had stifled a yawn. He couldn't imagine that his sofa-bed was comfortable at all to sleep on, and he and Other-Shawn had stayed up until almost two playing video games that Gus didn't like and got bored with easily (there really was some benefit to having to play with yourself, it seemed); while Other-Lassie had tried to make more case notes regarding what they knew about what had happened to them, and then to read the only few books Shawn currently had in his apartment (_Harry Potter &amp; The Prisoner of Azkaban_, two from the _Goosebumps_ series, a cook book teaching one how to emulate the Red Lobster cheddar biscuits and The Colonel's secret recipe, and a compilation of strange things people had found written on bathroom stalls across America), he hadn't been able to lie down and relax until Other-Shawn had shut the games off and declared that he'd win back his title of undefeated the next day. (Shawn had tried to tell him that he _had_ been defeated, and that he couldn't just win such a title back with a subsequent victory, but Other-Shawn had gotten a little obnoxious in his insistence that he could and he would. Shawn could maybe understand a little better now why Gus only played video games with him occasionally.)

So, Other-Lassie was tired, and Shawn leaped at the chance to get high in his good books. "I'm getting the sense that you wouldn't say no to a big cup of joe," he said. "There's a great place two blocks—"

"_Don't_ do that, Shawn."

Shawn glanced at him, a little startled at the sharp tone. Lassie was often sharp with him, but this was different—_this_ Lassie meant it. It wasn't simply a direction without much real threat behind it; this was an order given with the utmost conviction that it would be obeyed. The weird thing was, Shawn felt like he _wanted_ to obey it, to do exactly as Lassie told him instead of messing with him or teasing him—he just wasn't entirely sure what it was he wasn't supposed to be doing. "Don't what?" he asked. "Offer you coffee?"

"Don't pull the 'psychic' bullshit with me." Other-Lassie gave him a flat look that was vaguely threatening in the way that seemed to remove all emotion from his face and his voice. "I know what it really is, so drop the pretense and just say what you see. I don't like it when you lie and try to manipulate me, so cut it out _now_."

Shawn blinked, stuck for a few seconds between defensiveness (he honestly hadn't been trying to do anything but suggest they stop for coffee because he could tell that the other man was tired) and confusion at the way part of his mind had started frantically searching for ways to make it right, anything so that Lassie wasn't mad at him, wouldn't use that tone with him. "I wasn't?" he managed after a moment. "I just meant... I'm sorry."

The other Lassiter continued to look at him with his face blank, except for his slightly narrowed eyes, and then Shawn thought he saw his eyes soften a little before he looked away and settled more comfortably into his seat. "Fine," he said. "Let's go."

Shawn slowly put the car into reverse and got them on the road. "Did you want some coffee?" he asked almost timidly, after a couple of minutes of silence. "I really didn't—I just thought you were probably tired, and I could use some, so..."

"Yes, fine."

Shawn relaxed and made a left, feeling better now that Other-Lassie's voice wasn't as harsh. He parked in a fifteen minute spot, went into the cafe and picked up two large coffees (making sure to utterly douse one in cream and sugar), and was back with five minutes to spare. He held out Other-Lassie's coffee proudly, and watched his face carefully as he tasted it: almost no reaction, other than downing just about half of it in several long swallows. With Lassiter, sometimes no reaction was the best one could hope for, because it meant things were acceptable, as he damn sure let everyone around him know when things weren't. Shawn smiled and sipped his own coffee, then he set it in the Blueberry's cup holder and started the car back up.

As he drove to Wiccans R Us, or whatever it was called, the other Lassie suddenly glanced up from his sheets of notes he'd been studying and and looked at Shawn with his eyebrows slightly raised. "Oh," he said. "Thanks for the coffee. You fixed it exactly right." He paused. "Not that I trust any Tom, Dick, or Harry to get it for me, but when I _have_ asked, even with explicit directions, it's almost never actually right."

"Oh, sure, 'tweren't nothin'," Shawn said, grinning again.

"I guess you in both worlds _can_ remember simple directions, unlike dunderheads like McNab and Parsons." He paused again. "I almost forgot you're not you—at least, not the you I know," he went on slowly. "I suppose I'm sorry I snapped at you—it's ridiculous that you're keeping up that magical psychic malarkey, because I've never once believed it and I'll bet you a dead cat _and_ a string to swing it with that this world's version of me hasn't ever either. But if that's what you're used to, I guess I can't blame you for falling back on habit when we got into the car."

Shawn opened his mouth to reiterate that he really hadn't meant for it to sound like that, but then he realized that here, sitting beside him, was some version of of Carlton Lassiter not only explaining to him why he'd snapped at him but apologizing for it as well. "It's cool," he said. "I also almost forgot—I mean, not that you're not the Lassie I know, but that the other me told you, uh... what did he tell you, exactly?"

"Everything, or so he says."

"And... you're not sure that's all?"

"Fairly sure," Other-Lassie said dryly. "I wouldn't have asked him to move in with me otherwise."

"Wow," Shawn said softly. "So, um, can I ask? Why it was that he told you in the first place?"

"Because I wouldn't consider dating him if he kept insisting he solved cases with help from dead spirits."

"Oh." Shawn applied the brake as they came to a yellow light, and he had to consciously make his hands to loosely grasp the steering wheel instead of grabbing onto it with a death grip. "And, um... can I ask what your reaction was when he told you the truth?"

The other Lassie turned and looked at him full-on, and Shawn found his mouth dry when he met that intense gaze. After a short moment, Other-Lassie smiled a little, and Shawn couldn't bring himself to check whether or not the light was green again yet. "When he told me about his staggering deductive abilities, his mind-blowing observational skills, and his astounding memory?" He raised one eyebrow slightly and tilted his head toward the street. "Green light."

Shawn forced himself to break eye-contact, feeling like he was sinking in an ocean and flying through the sky at the same time; Carlton Lassiter really did have the bluest blue eyes he'd ever seen, and he sort of wanted to smush Other-Shawn's face into a bowl of pudding for being the one who had a free pass to stare into them all lovey-dovey. Not that he was really all that much of a lovey-dovey sort of guy, but this was _Lassie _. Granted, the fact that Shawn had wanted him for so long and had been almost completely rebuffed in every way didn't help the longing factor (nor did the sexyscruffy stubble he'd been sporting the day before), and neither, of course, did all of those things Lassie had just said about what Shawn could do when it came to solving cases. He had to try hard to keep his heart from growing three sizes as he started them going again. "Is that what he calls it?" he asked, trying for casual.

"No, that's what I call it."

"Oh," Shawn breathed quietly, his stomach feeling light and quivery like he was almost to the top of a roller coaster. "So what did you say then?"

"I said three things. The first was that I was even more impressed than before and he should have just told me all of that in the first place. The second was that he should have been a cop." Other-Lassie smiled again. "The third was to have dinner with me."

Shawn could see the storefront for Wesley's Westward Winds about a block ahead, which he was actually thankful for, as he didn't know what to do or say right now. On one hand, he was glad for the other world's versions of himself and Lassie, for them being able to figure out what they wanted with each other and to make it work between them. On the other hand, he was jealous and uncertain, a little resentful that it couldn't have been _him_ and _this_ world's Lassie that somehow got to a point where anything between them was even an option.

He parked across the street from the magick shop and got out, trying now to get his head back in the game: if the man he and Other-Shawn had talked to yesterday could at all help them figure out what had happened and how to reverse it, he needed to be sharp and on point to pick up anything else that might be of use to them. He hadn't wanted to say it aloud, but ever since he'd gotten it through his head that there really was an alternate-him and alternate-Lassie that had come through their mirrors and that both mirrors had broken immediately afterward, he wasn't at all sure it would even be possible to reverse it. Maybe if the mirrors had remained intact because then if the spell—or whatever—could be undone, they could go back the way they'd come. This was some supernatural, science-fiction stuff here, and he could think of several books and movies that agreed: if the way home was destroyed, you were stuck where you were. Although... maybe that wouldn't turn out to be so bad.

"Let me do the talking," he said, as he and Other-Lassie came up to the sidewalk.

"I'm the actual detective here," Other-Lassie said haughtily.

"I'm a detective too!" Shawn insisted. "You even said Other-Shawn helped you solve cases, and you know how I do it. This is so much more my fort of expertise than yours."

"It's forte," Other-Lassie grumbled.

"Nope, it's a fort—one that I built, one unconventional investigation at a time, except when I got a bulk order from the Spirits section at Costco." When Other-Lassie shot him a look, Shawn grinned. "They do have one. And to be fair, Gus was totally convinced that a box of wine he bought from there was haunted."

"Was that after he consumed the entire thing and you started messing with him?"

"You know, I'm going to have to consult my notes on that," Shawn said, stopping when they came up to the door. "But look—this dude could _tell_ yesterday there were _two_ of _me_, not that me and Other-Shawn were twins, so maybe he really does know something, and flashing your badge isn't going to get his lip to start flapping." He glanced at Other-Lassie and considered him, remembering that Lassiter was Head Detective for a reason, and that he _did_ often think of things that Shawn sometimes forgot to look for in the interest of chains of evidence. "I mean, if you want to chime in, by all means," he added. "Just, you know, remember that the strong-arm act isn't going to do it with people that believe rocks can speak to them."

Other-Lassie arched an eyebrow again. "Or people that believe you can be sucked through a mirror into a different world?"

Shawn made a 'tsk!' sound and gestured to the man standing next to him. "Evidence, son! You're standing here! You find a rock that tells me to roll, and _then_ we'll deal with that." He opened the door and they went inside.

Other-Lassie made a small disgusted noise the second he stepped foot in, which Shawn covered up with a big grin and a hail to the man behind the counter. The guy who had stared between him and Other-Shawn for almost twenty minutes the day before looked up and seemed to flinch, raising an accusatory finger at Other-Lassie, who, unfortunately, froze for exactly one-third of a second before sticking his hand inside his jacket and gripping the gun in his holster.

"You!" the proprietor of the shop cried. "You're back! Whatever sort of creature you are, know this: the Earth Mother rejects you, and so does the spirit of Father Time! You're not of this world, and you'll not take any of us back with you!"

"I'd be more than glad to go myself!" Other-Lassie snapped.

"Whoa!" Shawn said, holding up both of his hands and taking a small step toward the counter. "Dude, let's just... okay? You remember me, right? I was here yesterday with my less-handsome doppelganger. _This_ guy has never been here before."

"He brings with him on the wind the smell of yesteryear and doom," Wesley Windface said darkly, and then paused, as if to consider. "And Axe body wash. You know that stuff doesn't really give you unlimited female attention, right?"

"That's totally not a problem," Shawn told Wesley as Other-Lassie shot him a glare. (Shawn ignored him—he could have just as easily showered with the old bar of hotel room soap Shawn had offered when he'd demanded something other than the Axe that morning, but he'd chosen to smell like a Phoenix, and that was _right_.) "And hey, what's with the attitude?" he asked. "We were fine yesterday—we talked about freaky-deaky storms, movies with Tawny Kitaen and Ouija boards, and how to revert your spouse from furry status. Unless you're into that, which, hey, we're not judging."

"I'm judging," Other-Lassie said flatly.

"Oh, please, with some of the stuff _you're_ into?" Shawn scoffed.

Other-Lassie squinted at him. "How would you know?"

Shawn couldn't tell if that was a burn or not. "Well, there's the stuff _I'm_ into," he said, grinning. "If we're lovers in the nighttime in your world, I'm sure I've won you over."

Unexpectedly, the other Lassiter snorted in amusement and then smiled a little back at him. "How sure are you that it's not the other way around?" he asked softly.

Shawn blinked, his mind entirely blank for two or three whole seconds before filling with such a variety of images that he thought he was very soon going to have to either turn the subject around completely or hide his lower half behind a display of charms and stones that apparently warded off either bad dreams or fart clouds (he couldn't tell from the picture on the front of the case). "I... Wesleydidyoufindyourwife?" he managed.

The shopkeeper's shoulders slumped. "No, she didn't come home. I put out a dish of her favorite tuna and a saucer of lactose-free milk, but she wasn't on the step waiting for me when I woke up early to listen to the music of the season."

"I'm sorry, man," Shawn said sympathetically while Other-Lassie rolled his eyes. "Is she the one that we needed to talk to? You said yesterday that you could tell my other self was out of his own universe, and that's actually true—this guy here is out of his, too. They both belong to the same one, and we need to figure out a way to get them back home."

The demeanor of the man behind the counter changed then, going from melancholy to either intentionally hilariously over-dramatic or deludedly solemn about his ability to speak with the wind. Shawn flicked his eyes toward the confusing drawing he'd seen a minute ago and pictured this dude communicating with Henry's broken wind after a night of beans and franks.

"This is a crucial time for you," Wesley said in a low voice, staring so hard at Other-Lassie that Shawn was afraid he might go for his gun again. "The spell must have been very powerful indeed to call up such a storm that would thunder through the universes, lightning that would leave bright the way from one to the other as it ripped across the sky and pulled you through."

"How do we reverse it?" Shawn asked.

Wesley shrugged. "That depends on the person who cast it."

"How do we find them?" Other-Lassie asked.

"That depends on whether or not they want to be found."

Shawn saw Other-Lassie's hand twitch, as if to go for his holster, and fought an urge to just grab it with his own and then hold onto it. "Look, man," he said. "Can you give us _anything_ that'll help?"

"I've identified the force that offended the Earth Mother for you," Wesley said, sounding a little offended.

"Did you see this purported thunderstorm?" Other-Lassie asked.

Wesley blinked and hesitated just slightly. "No," he said. "But my wife did. She was very upset, nothing I did could calm her down."

"Did you try dragging a shoelace across the floor?"

"She wasn't a cat then!" Wesley shot, folding his arms. "You, carbon-copy of a real spirit that dwells in this universe, are a non-believer, and I'll thank you to leave my shop now."

"Gladly! You're just wasting our time!" Other-Lassie said, irritated. "Come on, Shawn."

Shawn stepped up to the counter quickly, putting his hands on the glass surface of another display case and leaning forward. "C'mon man, please?" he asked softly. "Do you know anything? This is way out of anything we've ever experienced before, and all four of us aren't really sure which way is up right now. They just want to get home, to their own universe. You took one look at me and the other me and knew we were the same guy, not twins. He's displaced." Wesley was giving a sour look over his shoulder at Other-Lassie, who had gone to stand impatiently by the door, and he didn't look convinced. "I'll help you find your wife," Shawn offered. "I'm psychic."

"Prove it," Wesley said flatly.

Shawn was surprised—here this a-hole was, hocking the wind spirits and the invisi-storms and the Planety Mommy or whatever, and he wanted _proof_? His eyes flicked around the room more quickly than most people could see (at least, almost no one ever caught him glancing around for clues when he cold-read someone), and in that fraction of a moment he saw enough to make him smile gently, his own I Have A Spirit Up My Butt And I Kind Of Like It expression. "Your wife is beautiful," he said. "She has startling green eyes that can see into your soul, and a calm way about her that both soothes you and makes you understand that she'll gladly kill for you. Her hair is soft and sleek and reminds you of the night, and freedom, even when you're all cuddly in bed together. She's your best friend and always comes to you when you're upset, but she has sharp teeth for anyone or anything that gets in her way."

Wesley was staring at him with wide eyes. "Yes," he breathed. "That's exactly right. Can you feel her?"

"A bit of her spirit always remains with you," Shawn said, not looking out the window and the alley behind the shop. "And I promise I'll help you look for her... as soon as the part of _my_ spirit that belongs in another world is sent back. Is there anything at all you can think of that would help us?"

"You should talk to Alina Belavol, otherwise known as Lady Bela," he said.

"We did!" Shawn said, starting to feel excited. "Or, we tried to—she said that she needed to consult some other spirits during a séance to ask what we were and how we could be in the same place." He glanced back at Other-Lassie. "I bet she has by now—it _has_ been a whole night. How hard can it be to throw a séance at midnight?"

"Whatever," Other-Lassie said dryly. "Let's blow."

Shawn grinned in lieu of saying something high-schooley like, 'When and where?' "I'll drive."

Outside, Other-Lassie stopped half a block away as a black cat with green eyes exited the alley and sat down in front of him. He raised an eyebrow and glanced at Shawn, who grinned, and he shook his head a little. "Lady, I'm sorry, but your husband is crazier than a shithouse rat," he said seriously. "You're better off chasing actual shithouse rats."

"Good little girl cat," Shawn said, bending down to scratch its ears. He found a couple of stray Goldfish crackers in the front pocket of the hooded sweatshirt he was wearing and scattered them on the sidewalk. "There," he said. "Now you don't even have to go home." He brushed a few crumbs off his palms and stood up, catching Other-Lassie's eye as the other man stood by the passenger seat of the Blueberry. "Cats like fish, right?" he asked. "Or cheese, at least? Anyway! Onward and upward."

"If you call a second whacko with a planchette 'upward'," Other-Lassie grumbled as he fit himself back into the car. He blew out an annoyed breath as Shawn simply started the car and got them back onto the road. "I don't know how much of a waste of time this really is," he said. "Even if _some_ magic is apparently real, how are we supposed to figure out exactly what sort, and how much, and who knows of it, and who could or would do anything about it?"

"I don't know," Shawn admitted. "But what else are we going to do?"

"Yeah," he muttered, his eyes downcast.

Shawn glanced at him and then frowned worriedly at the road; a morose Lassie could quickly get out of hand. "Look, we'll figure it out," he said. "We will, okay? I will. I promise. As long as it's remotely possible, I won't stop until I find the answer. No matter what it takes, we'll get you home... Carlton." Shawn said his name softly, trying to show that that he was telling the truth (and that he _would_ tell the truth to him, and Lassie really could believe him when he meant it), and it was awkward coming out of his mouth... but, at the same time, was something he could get used to if it was important to the other man.

Other-Lassie didn't say anything for a long moment, in which Shawn's slightly anxious feeling grew. Finally, he looked up and smiled, and the unpleasant wiggly feeling in Shawn's midsection settled down and he could breathe properly again. "Okay, Shawn," he said. He sat back against the seat, not entirely convinced, but looking much better anyway. "Lead the way. I'll be right behind you."

Shawn deliberately missed the turn to the fortune teller's house, deciding that as long as he had Lassie next to him, trusting him and counting on him, he could take the long way around. Anything to hold on to that feeling, to hold on to him.


	9. Chapter 9

Lassiter sat silently in his car with Spencer #2 next to him, staring at the side of a building where a shady-sounding witness had last been seen. He'd been tempted to threaten (or possibly even bribe) this Spencer into keeping his mouth shut while he was trying to work, but he was mildly surprised to find that it hadn't been necessary—Spencer #2 was sitting quietly and gazing out of the window, not fidgeting, not doing anything except gently tapping his fingers against his thigh. Judging by the rhythm, Lassiter thought he probably had some stupid song in his head, but he didn't care as long as it stayed there and didn't come belting out of his mouth. Lassiter had his dark sunglasses on, so he was fairly sure that Spencer couldn't see that he couldn't help glancing at him every now and then. He wasn't sure why he was doing it, only that this Spencer just seemed _different_ than the other, and he couldn't put his finger on it. It wasn't just the way he looked (a little thinner in the face and arms, his hair shorter and flatter, much like Spencer #1 had worn it the first year Lassiter had known him); it was something in his overall demeanor, something in the way he spoke and in his eyes. Not just with Lassiter's other self, either—that much was obvious when it came to the difference there, although he still thought he'd be damned if he'd ever understand it.

"What did he say to you?" he asked after a long silence. Not that he cared—whatever had passed between them as Lassiter #2 and his Spencer looked at each other before they'd all parted ways was between them, and Lassiter himself had no part in it—but it was weird to be so quiet and calm with any sort of Spencer around, and that might get him talking.

"Hmm?"

"The—" Lassiter made an awkward gesture to himself. "You know, the other me. Before we left. If he told you to keep some secret agenda while I'm trying to work on my case, I need to know about it."

"An agenda? Like, what? Ten-thirty: sneak into the computer and find out who's been busted for casting spells all over town in the last six months? Then at eleven o'clock: tacos?"

Lassiter rolled his eyes. "No. I just—you just looked really serious, and it's such an unfamiliar expression on your face that I wanted to know if _he_ was trying to put you up to something."

Spencer's smile widened. "Nah. He just told me to be good."

_Good?_ "What does that mean?" Lassiter asked suspiciously.

"You know, just... to be good." Spencer #2 shrugged. "Behave, obey, make him—or I guess you—happy."

Lassiter blinked at that, surprised. "What, and you actually listen to that?"

"Of course," Spencer said, smiling again. "I'm always good for him. Well, maybe not always, but as much as I can, I am."

"I'm surprised you can actually behave at all." Let alone take direction from him—or some version of him—to do so.

"Sure I can," Spencer said softly, looking at him intently. Lassiter blinked again and was glad once more for his dark glasses. "And I do, for him, when he asks me to."

"Whatever," Lassiter muttered, and he turned to gaze out of the window again. It was quiet for a minute or two while he studied the building, seeing nothing and feeling frustrated. It didn't help that his hand was starting to ache, the muscles cramping from how long he'd spent at the shooting range yesterday. He rubbed at it, flexing his fingers and cracking his knuckles. Spencer #2 glanced over at his hands, and then he turned toward him, reaching for him.

"Here," he said softly. "Let me."

Lassiter frowned. "Let you what?"

"Your hand—it's from shooting, right?" Before he could say anything, Spencer had taken his hand and started to pull it closer to himself. Lassiter wasn't sure what the hell he was doing until he gently held his wrist in one hand and applied the tip of his thumb to the bunch of muscle underneath Lassiter's thumb and started to knead and rub it.

Lassiter tried to pull his hand back, but Spencer gripped his wrist more firmly and held on, looking up at him and holding eye contact while his fingers continued to massage his hand. "What the hell are you doing?" Lassiter asked him, feeling incredibly awkward, half like he wanted to relax and let him—it was working, his hand was loosening up and already feeling less achey—and half like he wanted to reach over him, open the car's passenger door, and shove him out.

"I'm reading your future," Spencer #2 said, grinning slightly.

Lassiter rolled his eyes. "No, you're not. You at least admitted you're not psychic, even if _he_ hasn't, so I'm counting it." He looked down, still torn between allowing his arm to relax and using it to fling the alternate-universe apparition off of him. "Besides, that's not even how the real fake crystal ballers read palms. You're not even looking at my palm."

"The _real_ fake ones," Spencer said, sounding amused. He did look down at Lassiter's hand now, using the flat of his thumb to knead a larger area of the muscle in his hand, stroking it outward, seeming to disperse the worst of the ache as if it melted at his touch. Lassiter scowled again—that was a weird thing to think. "I'm impressed, Carlton," Spencer said. "I'm learning all of these things I never knew about you, like how much of your own expertise you really have in all things crystal ballin' and shot-callin'."

Lassiter opened his mouth to retort, and then he just closed it again, dropping from Spencer's face to his hands, which were expertly locating each painful area of his hand and either gently or firmly, depending on the muscle or bone structure, easing every bit of tightness and pain. He then moved on to his fingers, running each one through his own fingers before going over each knuckle, the tips of his fingers holding them and rolling them slowly in a circular motion. His gaze was focused down at Lassiter's hand, and Lassiter found that he'd been staring at Spencer's face for several long moments before managing to catch himself and realize again that, apparently, he was getting a pretty good hand massage from the doppelganger of the most annoying person in the world... one that was sleeping with his own doppelganger.

He tried to pull his hand back again, starting to say that it was enough, but Spencer #2 held onto his wrist again, this time gripping his palm with his other hand. "Shhh, stop," he admonished. "I know what I'm doing."

That much was clear, but it wasn't the problem. There had never been much physical touching at all between himself and Spencer—not counting times he'd been reduced to manhandling the smart ass when he simply wouldn't leave after being told to—and here _this_ Spencer was, holding his hand and rubbing it in an entirely casual way, like he did it all the damn time. It was strange enough that a double of himself and of Spencer had fallen out of the goddamned mirrors, but did they really have to be like _that_? And to behave as if it was perfectly normal? This Spencer had just called him _Carlton_, for god's sakes—he didn't think the Spencer he knew had ever done that unless he was taunting him. This Spencer probably called that version of himself Carlton all the time. He probably called him that when they—

"This is weird," Lassiter said in a low voice, meaning all of it, but particularly what was happening right now. Spencer touching _him_, his fingers warm and sure, applying just the right amount of pressure in just the right places. Spencer's other hand was still holding onto his wrist, not keeping him in place but just holding onto him, his other thumb moving back and forth over his skin.

"No it's not," Spencer #2 said nonchalantly, going back to the bunch of muscle under his thumb, which—goddamn it—felt really good. "I do this all the time. You from my world gets a lot of hand cramps from the shooting range, but you won't stop going. I keep telling you you're going to get arthritis and have The Claw permanently, but what do I know? I decided I'll mimic your Claw and it'll be our secret clubhouse signal." He looked up again, both hands stilled but not letting him go yet. "Better?"

Lassiter flexed his hand, not looking at Spencer, but looking down to inspect his palm as if he'd loaned it out for a week to someone who usually returned books with bent covers and he'd just gotten it back. "Yeah," he muttered. "Thanks, I guess."

"No prob," Spencer said, sounding pleased. Lassiter was about to pull his hand back when it suddenly rose toward Spencer's face, stopped, and Spencer finally released him. Lassiter looked at him questioningly and he shrugged. "Sorry," he said. "I always kiss your hand when I'm done. But you're a different you, huh? Guess you're not into that here." He tilted his head slightly to one side, looking as if he wanted to say something, or to ask a question.

Lassiter didn't want to hear it. Nothing was happening around the vicinity of the building yet, so he used his newly relaxed hand, still warm from the massage and feeling loose but agile again, to start the car. "I'm into lunch," he said abruptly, hoping that this version of Spencer was as distractible—particularly with food—as the version he knew.

It seemed he was—Spencer #2 sat up excitedly. "Taco taco taco taco," he chanted, bouncing in his seat a little. "Wait, no! Do you like fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?"

"What, like a grilled cheese?" Lassiter asked, slightly disgusted.

"Yup!"

"No, that sounds horrible."

Spencer beamed at him. "You love it, trust me—I brought some home once, and you did think it was a grilled cheese and tried to steal it. Then when you realized what it was and how _superbly_ the salty crunch goes with the sweet, melty filling, you stole it more and got addicted and now you actually have kind of a problem." His grin widened as he remembered something Lassiter's other self had done or said regarding the monstrosity of a sandwich he was describing. Spencer #2 nodded decisively. "Let's go to the Nutter Butter Hutter. I mean, it's called The Peanut Hut, but I think my name gives it the zest it's been missing."

"That seriously sounds gross," Lassiter said, but he imagined the place would have to serve other things too. That there just proved the differences in worlds, or universes, or whatever had been going on to somehow create two (or more—_that_ was a terrifying thought) of each of them. Whatever his double in that world was like, including whatever nonsense or outright insanity that caused any version of him to be in any kind of a relationship with Shawn Spencer, _he_ would never eat something that sounded like the results of a ten-year-old unsupervised in a kitchen and out of cheese and Easy Bake Oven lightbulbs. Some things—and some people—just did not go well together, that was all.

They arrived at the restaurant twenty minutes later. Spencer #2 was delighted when the girl that came to serve them recognized him—or recognized this world's Spencer, anyway—and confided that she would ring him with up the employee discount. Lassiter rolled his eyes as Spencer smiled and flirted with her, actually feeling a little more back on track now that he knew that at least Spencer was a charming conman in every incarnation. He ordered the fried peanut butter and jelly—"With extra fried!"—while Lassiter ordered sesame noodles with chicken. When their food arrived, he speared a piece of chicken on the tines of his fork and was about to dig in when he saw Spencer cram half of one of his sandwich triangles into his face and tilt his face up to the sky, sighing in complete satisfaction. He looked at the other half of the sandwich, which did look exactly like a grilled cheese on the outside—golden brown, a little greasy but crispy—but was leaking a mixture of melted peanut butter and grape jelly instead of American cheese. Spencer licked his thumb, where some peanut butter had squished out of the part of the sandwich he was still holding, and when he noticed Lassiter watching him, he grinned again.

"Just like I remembered," he said. "It's been awhile since I've been here, since Gus decided he was going to switch to almond butter and almond milk. That stuff's okay, but this is where the money lies." He held out the half of sandwich he'd bitten into. "Try a bite?"

Lassiter made a face at him. "No thank you."

"C'mon," he wheedled. "You like it, hey Mikey!"

"No, I don't!" Lassiter said, annoyed. "_I_ have never tried it. Look, I don't know what the hell is going on here, or how any of this is possible, but you need to get one thing straight. _I_ am not a continuation of—of whatever version of me you have in your world, just like _you_ are not the exact same irritating jackass I know that keeps screwing with my cases." He watched Alternate-Universe-Spencer look at him solemnly and then put down his sandwich and look at him as if he was actually giving him undivided attention—which just went to prove his point: they were _not_ the same person. "You're very similar, yes, just like I'm sure I'm similar to your—your—um, version of me."

"My boyfriend."

"Whatever. The point is that no matter what you seem to think, I'm _not_ him. I'm me. There are differences—and I can assure you that probably a good portion of his life, and your memories of him, are not mine. You need to stop talking about us like we're the same person."

"But you are," Spencer said. He held up a hand when Lassiter glared at him. "Experiences and memories aside. I know there are differences, some itty bitty and some more blatant—like the fact that I'm with him, but you're not with anyone, let alone any sort of me. I get that, all right? I'll stop saying that things he did and things he likes are things you've done and liked if it weirds you out." He paused thoughtfully, and Lassiter moodily stabbed another piece of chicken. "I guess I just want you to know that I know you," he said finally. "The differences are teeny-weeny almost-can't-be-seeny, other than the obvious, which I think is mostly happenstance, not personality. I mean, the theory of parallel universes is that they run alongside each other with minute differences, right? The difference between ours just seems to be that we're together in mine but not in yours—which is a big time bummer for the me that lives here. I bet that accounts for almost all of the differences you're seeing."

Lassiter gave him a doubtful look. "Sleeping with me makes you less annoying? Well, why didn't you say so? You pick up the check while I'll go grab your other self and give him something to shut him up."

He regretted saying that when he saw this Spencer's eyes widen slightly, and the tip of his tongue poked out to wet his lips a little. "Just FYI," he said after a moment. "That totally works."

"Great," Lassiter said sourly. That was an image he hadn't really needed, nor had he required the way it sprang into his mind so quickly. His gaze flicked toward Spencer #2 again, at his lips, which he was licking again after another gloppy mouthful of his sandwich. Lassiter dropped his eyes down to his food again and scooped a huge bite of noodles into his mouth, telling himself again that no matter what they said—and no matter how he'd seen _this_ Spencer straddling _that_ world's Carlton Lassiter and appealing to him in a way that was very like two people in a relationship—he simply couldn't square that they were sleeping together, that any part of him in some other universe was, as this Spencer had put it, "into that". Into _him_.

"You suuuuure you don't want to try a bite?" Spencer asked, holding out the second half of his sandwich. "It's reeeeeeally good. Sometimes things that don't seem like they'll work totally do. There's no rhyme or reason to it, so there's no use trying to sing along—just watch the popular TV show that's about absolutely nothing, dip your French fries in your Frosty, and _try this_."

Lassiter huffed out another annoyed sigh. "If I do, will you shut up about it?"

"Honesty points say no, but at least I'll refrain from the 'I told you so' and stick with the 'Isn't this delicious? Aren't I right all the time? And amazing? And hot? Aren't _I_ delicious?'"

"I am _not_ tasting _you_," Lassiter said, taking the sandwich and looking closely at it.

"Your loss," Spencer said lightly. "Well, and your Shawn's loss."

"He's not _my_ anything." Lassiter gave him a quick glare and then quickly took a bite of the sandwich, intending to pass it back and say, 'There!', having completed his side of the bargain and thus entitled to silence. However, the second his tongue started to swirl the odd combination of flavors in his mouth, he looked back down at the sandwich in surprise. He wasn't just surprised that it _was_ somehow delicious, and that he did like it, but that Spencer had been right. Maybe he did know him. Or some part of him. Or maybe all of him, who the fuck knew in this situation? What else did this Spencer know? He glanced over at him quickly and saw that he was smiling again, not looking self-satisfied in his victory, but simply happy that Lassiter did indeed like the sandwich, his eyes smiling just as much as his mouth. Lassiter tried to swallow the glob of peanut butter and bread in his mouth and it went down in a too-large clump, sticking to his throat.

He reached for his glass of water with one hand while pushing the rest of the sandwich at Spencer #2 with the other. He took several long swallows, feeling better and more collected. When he glanced back at Spencer, he saw that he was holding the sandwich, but hadn't eaten any more of it. As Lassiter looked at him, he held it out again. "Want the rest?" he asked.

"No, it's yours. And I have my own food," he added.

"I was going to order more to go anyway—one for later and one for my Carlton. Here." Spencer put the sandwich half on a napkin and pushed it over. "Trade you for half of your sesame chicken."

Lassiter sighed and gave in, although he wasn't that hungry anymore. He took the fried peanut butter and jelly and pushed his noodles over. "Finish it."

"You sure?"

"Yeah." Lassiter picked up the sandwich and took another small bite. Yes, it was definitely strange—crispy, buttery, salty... sugary grape jelly and smooth peanut butter melted together—but the first taste hadn't been a fluke. He could see how another version of himself that had tried this would continue to eat it regularly.

"Sweet," Spencer said, gave him a smile, and dug in.

When the server came back, Spencer #2 did order two more fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to go, and Lassiter thought again how strange it sounded to him to hear his given name coming from him. "Do you always call him by his—by my—first name?" he asked. "The you that I know never does."

"Hmm? Oh, yeah. Well, not always—when Gus is around, or people from the PD, I still go with Lassie, which he's cool with." Spencer paused. "You know the reason I started calling you that is just because I like nicknames, right? I—the Shawn from here doesn't do it to piss you off. He does it for the same reason he calls your partner 'Jules'."

"Yeah, well, her nickname isn't demeaning."

"Aw, c'mon, it's just 'Lassie ', not 'Assiter'."

"It's the name of a dog!"

"A great dog! A dog that saved a kid how many times? Plus, you're loyal, and you love it when I rub your tummy and give you a nice _bone_."

"Spencer!"

"My bad, my bad," he conceded, but he was grinning again. "That's him, not you. Anyway, I don't call him that all the time—when we're alone, I call him Carlton. And he calls me Shawn."

Lassiter watched him scoop up the last bite of noodles, thinking about being comfortable enough with the Spencer he knew to actually refer to him as Shawn. About hearing that Spencer calling him by his real name. He wondered about that other world's version of himself, about how it had happened that he was with this version of Spencer, how they had gotten to the point of being easy enough with each other to be happy.

"Are you happy?" he asked suddenly.

Spencer #2 looked up at him with his eyebrows raised. "Sure?" he ventured. "I mean, I'd like to get back home to where we belong, but at least I'm not alone here, and as long as he's with me, I'm good. Although it is worrisome that we're here to begin with. Overall I'm pretty okay, thanks for asking?"

"That wasn't—I mean—are you _happy_," he said, trying to clarify without having to say it. Spencer squinted at him slightly, and although he probably would have arrived there in a second, Lassiter gave it to him anyway. "With him. Being with him, your... version of me."

"Yes," Spencer said immediately. "It's not all sunshine and roses, I mean. We fight, we argue, we sometimes hid my bike keys and threatened to call my dad if I was trying to investigate a case and got _slightly_ too reckless—"

"Would that even work?"

Spencer raised an eyebrow at him. "Maybe," he said. "But I wouldn't advise trying it on your-world-Shawn. It only _sometimes_ worked with me because he has special boyfriend privileges, which actually include that 'sleeping with someone makes me less annoying' thing you mentioned earlier, along with the 'all efforts to be honest at all times' policy, and absolutely no experiments in the house, not counting fun and fancy free time in the bedroom." He paused. "But yeah, we're happy. I know it probably doesn't make any sense to you, but I'm not sure I can explain it. You should maybe talk to him about it." He paused again. "Although he did tell me that he finds it super weird to talk to you and that he's still not one hundred percent sure that you're not a cyborg."

"He's the cyborg," Lassiter said dismissively. "This is my world—Spencer-that-isn't-you and I were here first."

"True," Spencer #2 said. "But if you cut us, we bleed blue. Which actually does sound like something a cyborg would do." He suddenly looked excited. "Oh, dude, I can't wait to tell him that he's Robocop. That makes me Nancy Allen, that sweet Officer Lewis."

Being that Lassiter had had something of the same thought Spencer had mentioned—that it actually gave him the willies to be around that other version of himself that _was_ him, but who moved and spoke and thought independently—he didn't think the manly heart-to-heart over boyfriends/potential boyfriends was going to happen. "I'll take your word for it," he said. "I'm just... having a hard time understanding how it's even possible, no matter the universe or whatever else."

"That we're happy?" Spencer smiled again and shrugged. "I dunno. There's _something_ there—I'm pretty sure if you deny that, your pants are going to burst into flame, which is a direct violation of the fire code, and we'll be invited to leave before my sammiches are done."

_Something._ Maybe. But what? He didn't know, and never thought more that he never would.

"Like I said, we're not, like, over the moon every day of the week and twice on Sunday." He paused. "Four or five times a week at most." He grinned when Lassiter rolled his eyes again. "But there are ways—and means—and we make it work. We give and take. He knows how I work and lets me do my thing, and I bring him evidence before I ask him to move on a case unless I or someone else is in danger. He's more tolerant of my wily ways, I behave myself a little more—"

"You don't lie to him," Lassiter muttered.

Spencer #2 paused again. "No, I don't," he said. "But I also trust him, and he trusts me. It didn't happen overnight, but we got there, and now... yes, Carlton. We're happy together."

Lassiter forced himself to look up at this Spencer, this Shawn, the version of him that another part of himself, somewhere, trusted and wanted to be with, enjoyed spending time with. The one another Carlton Lassiter kissed, held, touched... made love with. Spencer's eyes were soft as he looked back, and Lassiter thought it likely that he knew what he was thinking. Psychic or not, the man knew things; his eyes were too fast and too deep.

"Does he love you?" he asked.

Spencer smiled. "Yeah, he loves me. A lot. And I love him."

Lassiter dropped his eyes down to the napkin with fried sandwich crumbs on it again. He had nothing to say to that. Thankfully, the server came by with a white cardboard box containing Spencer's to-go order, and they paid and left the restaurant. When they got back to the police department, Lassiter let Spencer come inside with him while he reported to Chief Vick that he hadn't been able to locate the witness. He left Spencer sitting in the chair next to his desk ("You stay here and don't touch anything," he'd ordered. Spencer had sat back, crossed his ankles, smiled, and said, "Sure." As Lassiter paused outside Vick's door, he glanced over his shoulder, and saw that Spencer #2 was still just waiting for him, looking around but making no sign of either getting up or rifling through any of the things laying on Lassiter's desk, while Spencer #1 would have seen the order as an engraved invitation to snoop) and went in to see his chief.

Vick had a grim look on her face; she informed Lassiter that an hour ago, Officers McNab and Nunez had responded to a call about an altercation in a mall nearby, and an ambulance had also been dispatched. He was about to ask what that had to do with him when she went on to say that twenty minutes ago, a county medical examiner's van had arrived on the scene and that it was now a murder investigation. According to mall security, a man had approached a woman perusing the Mirror Maze, a shop that exclusively sold mirrors, both large and expensive ones and small decorative ones. The clerk at the register had heard raised voices, including a man's voice pleading and a woman's shouting to leave her alone, and then there had been a tremendous smash; the clerk had then come around the corner to find the man unconscious, halfway through the frame of a large mirror, many broken shards of glass sticking into his body and a pool of blood growing on the floor. The woman was nowhere to be seen, but almost every mirror in that corner was also broken.

"Get up," Lassiter said to Spencer as he came back into the bullpen fast. "We've got another case, and I'm wanted on the scene now." Without a word, Spencer jumped to his feet and followed, sliding into the front seat of the car and snapping his seat belt on. He looked excited, watching Lassiter expectantly as he flipped his siren on, and because he was just continuing to wait instead of either demanding to be let in on the case or chattering annoyingly, Lassiter told him. He probably should know, just in case. "A man was killed in some house-of-mirrors store at the Rockway Mall," he said. "Sounds like he went after some woman and she shoved him back, almost all the way through one of those full-size jobs that go on the backs of closet doors. There were other broken mirrors all around, but no other blood on the glass, and she fled the scene, although nobody saw her."

"Whoa," Spencer said softly. "Do you think it could have to do with...?"

"Don't know." Lassiter pressed his lips together as he blew a red light. He debated calling the other Spencer and his other self, but they were supposed to be looking into it through other avenues, and while he thought it unlikely that they were making any progress, he didn't really want to deal with either of them. He glanced at Spencer #2, highly disapproving of what he was about to say, but as much as he hated it, he couldn't deny that it _had_ worked, more than once, and it could possibly really help now. "Think you can go ahead and pretend to have a 'psychic vision' so you can look around and see if you can find anything? If I'm going to bring you on the scene with me as a consultant, that _is_ your cover, no matter how stupid it is and what it is you actually do."

"Sure, no prob. That's what my Carlton has me do when I'm working a case with him."

"Fine," Lassiter said shortly. "I'm going to look at the body. I'm also going to instruct the security guard and the store manager to show you any surveillance tapes, and when I'm done, I'll meet you there."

"Okay." Spencer paused, and then he frowned thoughtfully. "A man is pushed back through the same kind of mirror I came through, but he didn't go anywhere—he just died. All of the other mirrors broken around them, but no blood except his, and the mystery mistress is melted away. I wonder if _she_ went through."

Lassiter wanted to roll his eyes, but it was getting harder to not take his own case—or the case of his and Spencer's doubles—seriously, since they were seriously in their world and _seriously_ needed to find out how, and why, and most importantly: how to get back. "If she did, she might have been taken," he said. "The cashier heard the dead man pleading and the woman shouting for someone to leave her alone."

"So maybe she was pulled back somewhere, and whatever it was tried to pull the man too, but he got stuck or the spell failed, and then the mirror-as-a-doorway turned back to real glass and cut him up?"

It made sense, as much as any of this did. "Let's start with that as our working theory until we find out more."

"Okay. We should call my Carlton and other-me, let them know."

"Not yet," Lassiter said quickly, imagining trying to deal with two Spencers sniffing around what was supposed to be his crime scene and offering bullshit theories. _But two Spencers may help, because he_ does _do something... just because I don't know exactly what doesn't mean he doesn't see things I don't, figure out things I can't, and solve crimes I haven't_, he thought sourly. Still, it would be more than difficult to explain the suddenness of apparent twin Spencers (and his own apparent twin that he'd never told anyone about, who was also a detective within the same city), and if it came to it, they could easily tell the other Spencer and the other Lassiter about it later, get their input on it when they met up that night. "Let's just start the investigation ourselves," he said. "They're working on the psychic side; we'll work on the police side."

"Okay," Spencer said reluctantly. He clearly wanted to call the other Lassiter anyway, but Lassiter couldn't tell it was in a police case sense or a boyfriend sense. Probably both. He looked doubtful, and Lassiter wondered if he would try to find a chance to get out of his earshot and call the others anyway.

"We'll call them when we're done with the scene," he reiterated as he pulled up behind a patrol car with its lights flashing and put his own car into park. He turned the car off but didn't jump out right away, turning and looking at Spencer, into his eyes to gauge his sincerity. He looked serious—he hadn't made a ton of wisecracks, he was still sitting there instead of vaulting out and immediately making a spectacle of himself, he had agreed to let Lassiter take the lead and follow his orders. "Are you going to help me on this?" Lassiter asked him softly. He almost said, _are you going to be good?_ because that was the phrase used with him earlier, which had seemed to work, but he had also recognized that as relationship-language. It wasn't his place, and he knew that.

"Yeah," Spencer said. "Just tell me what you want."

_What do I want?_ "Just... follow me in, and when I introduce you as a consultant to the case, have a minor—_very small_—vision or whatever, something to get a little bit of attention. Not the entire mall, got it? I'll have them show you any tapes of what happened and then I'll come see the tapes, too. I'll tell you about the body and the scene, you tell me if there's anything you think I need to know, and we'll go from there."

"Okay."

"Okay," Lassiter said back, and he got out of the car. _Here we go_, he thought.


End file.
